Strategic Family Therapy

1. Strategic Family Therapy Elif Deniz Kuru 1664028

2. Outline • Problems Faced in Families • General Purposes of Family Therapies • Strategic family therapy • What brings family therapy? • Goal • Stages • Homework Assignments • Case examples (Interview with Mrs. Bray)

3. Problems Faced in Families • Communication problems (%24,04) • Quantity and quality of the communication in families • Alienation between family members • Lack of democracy

4. Problems Faced in Families • Raising a child (%14,84) • Attitudes of parents • Developmental stages of the child • Divorce (%9,2) • Uncertainty about the decision • Facilitate the process of divorce • Emotional problems after divorce

5. Problems Faced in Families • Gambling (%5,04) • Lack of self-reliance (%3,56) • Suicide thoughts or attempts • Behavioral disturbances • Puberty • But not just these - Any problem that can be faced in family settings

6. General Purposes of Family Therapies • Improving the verbal communication between family members • Increasing or simplifying emotional communication • Providing balance of power in a family • Determining role problems and such

7. Strategic family therapy • Milton Erikson, Don Jackson,Jay Haley • is a family-oriented that involves a patient's daily family environment as a major part of treatment • many approaches used in psychotherapy focus on underlying issues that cause problematic behavior • it was far more important to get patients to actively do something about their problems rather than help them to understand why they had these problems

8. Strategic family therapy (cont.) • It is goal-driven and task-oriented • focuses on the present and how to change the future • seeks to address specific problems that can be addressed in a shorter time frame

9. What brings Strategicfamily therapy? • If: • There is a problem in the developmental stages of the family • A present problem in the family cannot be solved by the techniques that are already used by members • Attempting the same solutions with no results

10. Goal • The goal is to break this vicious circle • Determine who is involved in presenting problem and in what way • Design an intervention to shift focus of presenting problem • Changing ineffective attempts • Introduce alternatives

11. Stages • Process is broken down into five different parts • The brief therapy stage • The problem stage • The interactional stage • The goal-setting stage • The final stage

12. The Brief Therapy Stage • seeks to observe the family’s interactions, create a calm and open mood for the session, and attempts to get every family member to take part in the session

13. The problem stage • is where the therapist poses questions to the clients to determine what their problem is and why they are there

14. The interactional stage • is where the family is urged to discuss their problem so the therapist can better understand their issues and understand the underlying dynamics within the family • hierarchies within a family, coalitions between family members, and communication sequences that exist

15. The goal-setting stage • is used to highlight the specific issue that needs to be addressed • this issue is both identified by the family members and the therapist • the family and the therapist work together to come up with goals to fix the problem, and better define the parameters for attaining those goals

16. The final stage • is the task-setting stage • in this stage, the therapist wraps up the session by coming up with concrete homework assignments or directives the family can do outside of therapy to start to change their problems • additional therapy sessions seek to further gain understanding to a family’s problems, dynamics

17. Homework Assignments • The underlying goal of the homework is to try to change the way the family dynamics function around the presenting problem that was identified in session • The therapists take a more active and controlling approach in dealing with the family

18. Case Examples • A child with a fear of dogs • A distant father • Involvement of mother is excessive • Problem: level of involvement of father, mother’s approach towards the fear • Task: Finding a dog that fears from people and take away this fear - But the father should help the child about this task

19. Case Examples (cont.) • Depressive adolescent: • Limited social contact with family • Isolating himself from home environment • Problem: Insistence of other family members about changingthe way he behaves • Task: Stop insisting and allow him to decide what time is appropriate for changing his behaviors

20. Case Examples (cont.) • A newly married couple: • Parents of both side are excessively involved in every task of the couple • Number of visits • Problem: not starting the new phase (being married) and stuck in “child in the family” phase of the life • Task: Increasing the number of demans from parent - Parents become confused and draw back themselves

21. Summary • Problems Faced in Families • General Purposes of Family Therapies • Strategic family therapy • What brings family therapy? • Goal • Stages • Homework Assignments • Case examples

22. References • http://www.nacoa.net/pdfs/addicted.pdf • http://www.usmc-mccs.org/leadersguide/Family/Marital/sepdivorce.htm • http://www.helpguide.org/mental/child_abuse_physical_emotional_sexual_neglect.htm