Selected Essays And Book Reviews
COUN 601 - Marriage and Family Counseling
Lesson 20. Structural Family Counseling (Part II) {667 words}
1. Discuss some sources of stress and the goals of therapy. Stress comes from environmental stress, such as the Cuban missile crisis, where the whole family is affected by what is going on in the environment. Stress also comes from developmental issues, which is simply the family life cycle and childhood, adolescent, and adult development.
The goals of structural family therapy are to try to change the family structure so that they can help themselves and to create an effective hierarchical structure. With enmeshed families, the therapist tries to strengthen boundaries and help the differentiation process. With disengaged families, the therapist aims for open and more permeable boundaries.
2. Discuss the theory of techniques with structural family counseling. This type of family counseling tries to join the therapist and the family, tries to alter boundaries, and tries to realign the subsystems in order to change the family structure.
3. Identify the three phases of structural therapy. In the opening phase, the therapist joins the family, works with interactions, and diagnoses how the system is functioning. In the "mapping the underlying structure" phase, the therapist will highlight the interactions to let the family know how they are interacting. In the final phase, "transformation of structure", the therapist tries to change the family structure. This is done by helping individuals set boundaries, unbalancing to unstructure the family (this step might throw the whole family into chaos), and reframing (putting into light a behavior that was intended to be good but may be bad (parents doing too much for their children)).
4. Discuss some other techniques with structural family counseling. A lot of counseling is just being with the family, getting information, trying to understand them, and trying to help. Counselors like for the whole family to be in each session
Three ways to join the family are tracking and parroting (this shows active listening), mimesis (shadowing their emotional or physical state and the family's mood), and confirmation and accommodation (supporting members of the family who saying things on one level but doing them on another). Other techniques used by therapists are enactment (having the family act something out), spontaneous interaction, and shaping confidence (similar to reframing, this is highlighting all positive behavior, even if of minimal benefit).
5. Discuss the definitions of psychoanalytic counseling.
A. Countertransference - emotional reaction, usually unconscious and distorted on the part of the therapist to a patient or member of a family in treatment. This is the therapist reacting to the actions of the patient. In the "Family Crucible", Dr. Whittaker became anxious at one point over his own life because of what was happening with the family in session.
B. Insight - an understanding and acceptance of unconscious or repressed parts of one's personality.
C. Introjection - a primitive or very early form of identification which involves taking in aspects of other people which then become part of the self-image. This is imitating pieces of someone else and actually making a part of them a part of you.
D. Invisible Loyalties - Boszormenyi-Nagy's term for unconscious commitments that children take on to help their family.
E. Object Relations Theory - psychoanalytic theory derived from Melanie Klein and developed by the British school, which emphasizes relationships rather than libidinal and aggressive drives as key issues. These drives are based on early attachments or lack of attachments to one's parents, and they affect how we relate to objects in our life. We relate to others the same way that we were related to.
Tom of Bethany
"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (I John 5:12)
"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)
Index to Selected Essays And Book Reviews
Lesson 21. Psychoanalytic Family Counseling
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