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M&FT > Chap 12 - Structural > Flashcards

Chap 12 - Structural Flashcards

1
Q

Structural Family Therapy major theorists

A

• Founder: Salvador Minuchin
o Worked at Wiltwyck Institute with inner city delinquents
• Active and aggressive family members who tended to blame others and react quickly called for dramatic and active interventions (helps avoid possible shootings and/or shankings/shivings)
• Founded Institute for Family Counseling
• Training program for community paraprofessionals
• Highly effective for providing mental health services to the poor

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2
Q

Premises of Structural Theory

A

o Pragmatic (practical), emphasizes individuals interacting with their environment
o Every family has a structure
• Can only be discovered through observations of repeated interaction patterns between and among family members
o Emphasizes family as a whole and interactions between subunits of the family
• Dysfunctional thing that may arise in the dysfunctioning dysfunction of a dysfunctional family
o A major thesis: person’s symptoms are best understood as rooted in the context of family transaction patterns
• Put simply the family as a whole is the client: fix the system, fix the one with the problem

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3
Q

Family structure

A

an indivisible set of functional demands that organizes the ways in which family members interact

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4
Q

Coalition

A

alliance between specific members against a third (aka a triangle)

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5
Q

Stable coalition

A

fixed and inflexible alliance that becomes a dominant part of the family’s everyday functioning (dysfunctioning)

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6
Q

Detouring coalition

A

a coalition in which members hold another member responsible for their difficulties or conflicts, thus decreasing the stress on themselves and their relationship (like parents blaming a child for all their problems or some shit like that)

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7
Q

Subsystems

A
  • smaller units of the system as a whole
    • Their mission-to explore strange new….I mean….carry out various family tasks
    o Some tasks are temporary: painting a room or some other shitty project
    o Some are more permanent: like parenting a child (God help them)
    • Important ones: spousal, parental, and sibling
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8
Q

Spousal subsystem

A
  • may consist of a single parent or any possible combination of two parents
    o Work best when there is complementarity of functions
    • Reciprocal role relationships that typically constitute an important element in the family organization
    • Like one spouse responsible the inside chores and one the outside chores
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9
Q

Parental subsystem

A

those responsible for the protection, care, and socialization of the children
o Functions better if there isn’t a cross-generational alliance

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10
Q

Cross-generational alliance

A
  • members of two different generations entering into an alliance to obtain certain objectives or needs
    • Like a mother and child colluding to steal daddy’s special soda (thanks VANESSA!!!)
    • Need clear boundaries that still allow access to other members
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11
Q

Sibling subsystem

A

unit in which the members are of the same generation (age greatly affects this-duhhhh)

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12
Q

Boundaries

A

physical/psychological factors that separate and organize people

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13
Q

Clear ones

A
  • rules and habits that allow members to enhance their communication and relationships with one another because they encourage dialogue (and togetherness shit)
    • Good communication and feedback, negotiation and accommodation occur, facilitate change while maintaining the stability
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14
Q

Rigid ones

A
  • inflexible rules and habits that keep people separated from one another
    • Difficulty relating in an intimate way-lead to emotional detachment
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15
Q

Diffuse ones

A
  • rules and habits that do not have enough separation between members
    • Some members are “fused” (not literally obviously-do you know how effed up that would be?)
    • Encourages dependence-discourages autonomy
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16
Q

Triangulation

A
  • child[ren] (love those symbols :]) that have become involved in parents’ conflicts by taking sides, distracting parents, or carrying messages to avoid or minimize conflicts
    • Child becomes parentified
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17
Q

parentified

A

given privileges and responsibilities that exceed what would be considered developmentally consistent with his or her age

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18
Q

Alignments

A
  • ways members join together or oppose one another in carrying out an activity
    • Completely normal-non pathological-ways of interacting
    • Like disagreements, arguments, death threats that arise while playing monopoly
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19
Q

Roles of Structural

A
  • positions under which members are operating
    • Difficulties can arise if the expectations of members are outdated and ineffective
    • Example: youngest of the family is not taken seriously because they are the baby
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20
Q

Rules of Structural

A

-provide structure via an organized pattern that becomes predictable and manifests itself in repeated patterns
• Not good if main breadwinner gets laid off but still insists on buying everything with the money they don’t have

21
Q

Power

A
  • the ability to get something done
    • Authority and responsibility (one who makes and one who carries out the decision respectively)
    • Dysfunction occurs when only a small number of members hold the power (think of your least favorite government)
    • The members who don’t have the power can become disenfranchised and cut ties with the family (think of your favorite revolution)
22
Q

Treatment Techniques

A

o “Structural family therapy is sometimes referred to as a way of looking at families.”
o Dysfunction occurs because of the development of dysfunctional sets

23
Q

Dysfunctional sets

A

reactions in response to stress that are repeated without modification whenever there is a family conflict

24
Q

Joining

A

process of “coupling” that occurs between the family and the therapist

25
Q

Tracking

A

therapist follows the content of the family (the facts)

26
Q

Mimesis

A

therapist starts talking like the family (becomes “one of them”

27
Q

Confirmation

A

using an affective word or phrase to reflect (and thereby affirm) an expressed or an unexpressed feeling of a family member. Can also be done by a non-judgmental description of that individual’s behavior

28
Q

Accommodation

A

therapist makes personal adjustments to achieve a stronger therapeutic alliance

29
Q

Disequilibrium techniques

A

changing a family system (another list-this time there are eleven)

30
Q

Reframing

A
  • changing perception by explaining a situation from a different context-facts are examined from a new perspective
    • New wording or more positive wording can make all the difference
31
Q

Punctuation

A

a selective description of a transaction in accordance with the therapist’s goals

32
Q

Unbalancing

A

therapist supports one subsystem against the rest of the family-uses the therapist’s inherent authority as “the expert” to upset the balance of power in the family

33
Q

Enactment

A

get the family to interact while the therapist observes without interfering

34
Q

Working with spontaneous interaction

A

focusing spotlight on some behavior-like a dysfunctional behavior the family displays while in session

35
Q

Boundary making

A

helping the family redefine and modify the boundaries in the family to accommodate any change occurring within the family

36
Q

Intensity

A

therapist makes statements that raise the affect and pressure on the family-with the idea of changing maladaptive transactions-have to be forceful and carefully worded

37
Q

Restructuring

A
  • the heart of the structural approach-involves the change of the structure in the family
    • Alters the existing hierarchy via enactment, unbalancing, and boundary formation
38
Q

Shaping competence

A

highlight positive behaviors and reinforce them even if they only succeed temporarily

39
Q

Diagnosing

A
  • observe interactions and label them if they are maladaptive
    • i.e. triangulation, coalition, etc.
    • Done before the therapist becomes part of the system
40
Q

Adding cognitive constructions

A

include advice, information, pragmatic fictions, and paradoxes

41
Q

Advice and information

A
  • offering the therapist’s experience as advice to the family-such as if the family asks if they’re normal
    o Say that “your family is unique, but the problems are common among families that I see”
42
Q

Pragmatic fictions

A

statements that help the family gain a better understanding of reality and helps the family achieve change

43
Q

Paradox

A

confusing message meant to frustrate and motivate them to find alternatives

44
Q

Role of the therapist in Structural

A
  • Like a theater director-an active observer and expert
  • Role changes as therapy progresses
  • Therapist maintains a “middle-distance” as opposed to a proximal distance
45
Q

Process and Outcome of Structural

A

o Process is gradual but steady
o General patterns
• Symptom resolution and structural changes if successful
• Significant change occurs in the first few sessions because of the specific techniques used to change the interactions
• Emphasizes action over insight
• Family is often given homework (they define homework-even though we’re graduate students in counseling, apparently we have no idea what homework is-therapeutic or academic)

46
Q

Homework

A

activities to do outside of the session

47
Q

Emphasis of Structural

A
  • Versatility
  • Clearly defined terms and procedures
  • Approach is defined in such a way that it is easily accepted by the medical community
  • Emphasizes symptom removal and reorganization of the family
  • Pragmatic, problem-solving approach
48
Q

Comparison with other theories

A
  • Criticism is that it is not complex enough to deal with the complexities of family systems
  • The focus of the theory lends itself to reinforcing sexism and sexual stereotypes
  • Focuses on the present and ignores past data
  • Hard to distinguish from strategic family therapy
  • Families are not as empowered because the therapist is so active

M&FT (5 decks)

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