The History Of Structural Family Therapy ( Colapinto, 1982 ) Essay

The goal of Bowen’ theory is to review developmental patterns within the familial system and the stress centered around the anxiety caused by closeness or the lack thereof (Penny, 1999). Bowen’s theory works to facilitate a decline in stress and anxiety by enabling the clients with education as to how the emotional system works and focusing on how to modify self perceptional behaviors instead of working to change others within the system (Penny, 1999).

In 1985 Dr. Howard Liddle developed Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) in an effort to combat adolescent substance abuse along with associated mental health and behavioral issues (Rowe, 2010). Combining multiple theoretical frameworks, such as developmental psychology, family systems theory, and the risk and protective model of adolescent substance abuse, Liddle created a multi-systems approach to focus on the adolescent as an individual, family member, and peer; the parents as individuals and their caregiving roles; the family and their interconnected relationships as well as the family environment; and extra-familial influential systems, such as school, peer networks, and the juvenile justice system (Liddle, 2010). This ecological conceptual framework allows for MDFT to delve deeper into understanding the adolescent’s intersecting environments and relationships in regard to their own development and substance abuse.

The movie Ordinary People is a movie which looks at a family struck by tragedy, It shows how an upper middle-class family handles life when tragedy strikes unexpectedly, and family order is turned into chaos. The movie in essence sheds light into a family, due to a tragedy, has turned into separate individuals living in the same house, who lack of communicating their grief effectively. The movie was shown through a realistic lens, without over dramatization; looked into misplaced guilt at every level. The inability of the family to work through the tragedies lead them to a place where they each felt a breakdown within each other as well as the family dynamic.

Structural family therapy is associated with the work of Salvador Minuchin and is an evidence based therapy influenced by brief strategic and eco-systemic structural family therapy (Gerhart, 2014). Structural family therapists are active in the counseling sessions and will want to have all of the members of the family participate in the counseling sessions. The therapist is then able to map family structures in order to resolve relation problems between family members. The therapist will then make assessments and set goals to restructure the family interactions while focusing on family strengths.

Family is something that plays a tremendous role in our life. Even though the structure of families has changed over the years, it is important to acknowledge that there many families out there whether they are traditional families, nuclear family, stepfamilies or others which tend to have different types of problems in their families. Therefore, many families attempt to go to family therapy in order for them to obtain help in solving the different types of issues they might have at home. As stated in the book Family Therapy by Michael P. Nichols (2013), “The power of family therapy derives from bringing parents and children together to transform their interaction… What keeps people stuck in their inability to see their own participation in the problems that plague them. With eyes fixed firmly on what recalcitrant others are doing, it’s hard for most people to see the patterns that bind them together. The family therapist’s job is to give them a wake-up call” (2013).

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.

The history of family therapy began around 1960 when Gregory Bateson came up with the term, “system thinking.” This type of therapy was a daring departure, from traditional and individual treatment during the 1960s. He was involved in the schizophrenia research project in Palo Alto, California, which had a strong impact in shaping the course of family therapy. Along with his colleagues Jay Haley, John Weakland, William Fry, Don Jackson and later Virginia Satir, Paul Watzlawick, Bateson developed a communication theory which aim was to explain development of schizophrenic behavior within the familial environment.

Structural Family Therapy (SFT) was invented by Salvador Minuchin while working with lower-socioeconomic-level Black families (Gladding, 2015). A main premise of the theory is that “an individual’s

3. From a cultural perspective, many families do not want to attend therapy or receive services because of the stigma that something is wrong with their family or the fear of other people finding out about what is going on in the family. Mom also deals with her parents and their opinions on her parenting and marriage. In Hispanic/Latino cultures “what happens in the family, stays in the family”. Because the children are all under the age of eighteen no services can be provided without moms consent. Another obstacle would be the children attending and participating the services. In many homes grandparents live with their children without addressing the children or talking to them. Mrs. Mann has allowed her parents to come in and also watch the children which could cause some confusing amongst the kids about who is ultimately in charge now that their father is gone.

Family unit is impassive, does not test symptomatic member in order to continue entangled or disconnected structure in the family.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare an annotated bibliography on family therapy with emphasis on ethnicity and sociocultural influences on the problems of communication. This research includes twelve resources on authors with the following annotations: Delineation of the main focus or purpose of each author 's work; Background and credibility of each author; Intended audience for the work; Any unique feature of the work; Theoretical understandings; Family therapy strategies or techniques; and a Conclusion or observations presented in the work.

What I learned about myself that is that I am capable of understanding and grasping different concepts in family therapy. In addition, I learned that I am not as comfortable with experiencing my personal feelings about certain topics. What I learned about my family from these journals is how open some members of family would be to discussing their issues. In addition, I learned how each individual family member has his or her own problems. For instance, some of family members have either psychological or emotional problems that would benefit from the different therapy styles that were presented in the book. I also learned more about family history and structure from these journal exercises.

Systemic therapy was based on Minuchin’s Structural Therapy model (1968) followed by Bateson's cybernetic model (1972) The first order cybernetic model considerd that problems within a family system should be focused on by strategically solving problems, meeting family goals and help change a person's dysfunctional behaviour. D Shazer (1985). These concepts in Systemic therapy were known as the major paradigms and were taught by therapists such as Minuchin in Milan until the information-processing systems were introduced. They were characterized by the therapist's observation of the system from the external social world. Minuchin S & Fisherman,HC (1981)

Marriage and Family Therapy, particularly the family aspect, has a long history. Some of the family aspect was touched on by such leaders in the field as Freud and Rogers. The focuses for these two theorists however, were based on the impact, particularly the negatives, on the family and didn’t delve into the treatment of the family as whole. This base work however led to the questions asked by the early pioneers interested in treating the family as a whole unit. The question that really set things off was, “‘To what extent would we have to reject and/or accept prevailing theoretical concepts and techniques from individual theories to succeed (Chabot, 2011)?’”

The reading is taking from chapters 1 to 5, the foundations of family therapy, the evolution of family therapy, basic techniques of family therapy, the fundamental concepts of family therapy, Bowen family systems therapy. However, my mine focus is on Bowen’s theory; this paper will address the Bowen family system theory which includes differentiation of self, the emotional triangles, multigenerational emotional processes, emotional cutoff and societal emotional process.