Family Referral Today I received a referral from a family who is seeking help regarding their dysfunctional family structure. The Simpson’s are a nuclear family that is having difficulties living as a family. I have already spoken to Marge Simpson and agreed to find a way to get her husband and children to therapy. She has very high aspirations of attending therapy with her family because she has longed for a “normal” functioning family in which her husband and children interact in a much healthier manner than they do now. She described her husband of being careless, her son uncontrollable ate times, and her daughters disconnected from the family. We have set up the meeting for next week, Wednesday at six, when she believed her family …show more content…
For this particular session Marge sat with her baby in the couch, her son sat as far away from the family as he could, her other daughter also sat on the couch but not close to Marge or the baby, and her husband sat on the recliner way from her family as well. I tried to break the tension that I felt in the room by asking the family how they were doing but I only got an answer from Marge and a smile from her older daughter, Dad and son didn’t seem to want to take part. I then asked each one to introduce them-selves. The first one to speak up was Marge; she introduced herself and her baby Maggie who is one. I could tell that Marge was nervous about therapy and her baby was just being a baby. The next one to speak up was Lisa, Lisa seemed shy but was very polite as oppose to Homer her dad and Bart. Both Homer and Bart seemed to resemble each other; they were careless and bored about being in therapy. During the first session boundaries and ground rules were set. In this session my goal was to get to know the whole family and learn about each of their concerns and what they each wanted to gain from therapy. I went around the room and asked each one to describe how each one viewed their family structure as a whole. I let Marge begin since she seemed to be the most eager one in starting family therapy. Her main concerns were having her husband’s support, her son’s
What we bring as a person to the counseling room determines the direction we take with our clients. Coming from what I describe as a dysfunctional family and my questions of why is my family the way it is, why do I behave or think the way I do I drown to the family counseling theory. Many people including myself have why questions about their family. Some of those why questions are, “why is my family like this, where did I get this habit from, will my family ever change? The family systems approach helps solve some of those why questions.
For this assignment, two different theoretical approaches will be discussed, Bowenian family therapy and structural family therapy, and they will be used individually to construct a treatment plan to help clients reach their goals. Within each treatment plan discussed, short-term and long-term goals of therapy will be established and the family’s presenting problems will be defined. Two techniques that will be assigned to help them reach their therapeutic goals and any expected outcome from using those techniques will be discussed.
The basic concepts of this type of therapy are boundaries, subsystems, complementary and alignments which are easily applied and grasped. The most important aspect the therapist must keep in perspective is that every family is made up of structure and that these structures are seen only when the members of the family interact. If the therapist does not consider the entire structure of the family and intervene in only one of the many subsystems are most likely not to attain a lasting change.
Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy employed to assist members of a family in improving communication systems, conflict resolution, and to help the family to deal with certain problems that manifest in the behavior of members. In most cases, deviance in a family member is an indication of underlying family dysfunctions. This paper looks the counselling procedure that can be applied to help the Kline family solve their problems. It answers certain questions including those of the expected challenges during therapy and ways of dealing with the challenges.
Marriage and family therapists believe that the family patterns may affect an individual’s psychological and physical well being and therefore need to be part of therapy. During a therapy session even if only one person is being interviewed, the therapists focuses on a set of relationships that the person is embedded in. The entire family is involved in solving clients problems regardless of whether the issue in individual or family.
My first assumption of family therapy was to involve the parents and the individual that had the problem. This book explored further what it
Family therapy is a technique that has many alternative approaches to every aspect of treatment which Nichols (2014), states may present a challenge when describing a basic technique. The two models of family therapy in which I feel that I would be most effective and comfortable with would be, experiential family therapy and solution-focused brief therapy. I feel most comfortable with these models because, I adapt to the role of the therapist of both therapies naturally. According to Nichols (2014), when families seek therapy they are stuck in a life-cycle transition, sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are not obvious. I’ve found that during the first session an excellent question is to ask the client why now so that they can
Haley and Madanes’ approach to strategic family therapy argues that change occurs through the process of the family carrying out assignments issued by the therapist. As described in Madanes’ Strategic Family Therapy (1981), “strategic therapists attempt to design a therapeutic strategy for each specific problem.” Therapists issue directives that are designed to shift the framework of the family to resolve the displaying problem. Treatment of these issues would include intense involvement, carefully planned interventions designed to reach clear goals, frequent use of therapist-generated directives or assignments, and paradoxical procedures.
The family is made up of five people: Claudia, the IP; Carolyn, mother; Laura, the sister; Don, the brother; and David, the father. The family is coming into therapy because there have been mounting concerns about Claudia and her behavior—acting out, staying out late, some fairly typical teenage stuff. For the purpose of this paper, I will be starting at the beginning where the family is first coming into therapy. I will first school that I will apply is Structural Family Therapy and the second school is Bowen Family Therapy.
therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of
The goal of each session is to manage anxiety and increase the client’s level of differentiation, incorporating “I-statements” (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 227). The evaluation interview begins with a telephone call between a combination of family members (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 223). A therapist is to remain neutral and avoid being triangled into family issues. Sessions focus on symptoms in relation to the presenting problem (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 223). The counselor gages each member’s perspective of the issue, while remaining aware of patterns of emotional functioning (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 223). Sessions conclude with intentions to understand third-generation family systems. This part of the technique
Becvar, D. & Becvar R. (2009). Family therapy: a systemic integration. (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
L.M.’s main personal compliant at the beginning of Family Based Treatment was feeling that no one listens to her. She was quick to volunteer in the participation of additional therapeutic hours with this intern along with the over two-hour weekly family sessions and her own outpatient therapy. When asked if she would be interested in meeting with the intern for a few sessions, she remarked: “I could use talking to someone who will listen.”
The Simpsons first came to life on April 19th, 1987. It was aired as a
The history of family therapy began around 1960, when Gregory Bateson coined the term, “system thinking.” This type of therapy was a daring departure, both technically and philosophically, from traditional and individual treatment during the 1960s. Gregory Bateson was inspired. He felt that the unit known, as “the family” needed to be celebrated and that is exactly what he did” (Family Therapy, 2010, Para 1) Along with Gregory Bateson, are a list of several others who contributed to the evolution of Marriage and family counseling. This list includes the founder of social work, Mary Richmond, Mr. W. James, who researched the organic expression of social systems intervention and Mr. J. Dewey. Each of these