Strategic Family Therapy Flashcards
Aligning with Parental Generation
A technique directed at strengthening the parental hierarchy and reinforcing that parents are in charge over the children. The therapist will break neutrality and intentionally align with the parental subsystem.
Directives
Specific, directed behavioral tasks for the family to engage in different behaviors in session and then carried out in the home between sessions.
Ordeal Therapy
A paradoxical directive that places a client in a situation where it creates more work for them to maintain the problem symptoms or behavior than it would to change it. Ex. couple is encouraged to have “argue time” but therapist tells them to rearrange the living room like a courtroom before arguing.. so much an ordeal they’ll not care as much about the argument.
Incongruous Hierarchies
Occurs when children create symptoms in an attempt to change their parents.
Strategic Humanism
Madanes broke off and viewed love and happiness as appropriate therapy goals, that all problems arose between love and violence.
Presenting Symptom as Metaphor
The symptom was redefined as a metaphor of a larger problem. Ex. A child wetting his bed was a metaphor for keeping focus on him so his father can maintain his drug addiction.
Pretend to Have Symptom
A form of paradoxical intervention where Madanes would instruct a child to have a symptom and instruct the parents to help the child through it.
Reframing
Presenting an alternative perspective on a family member’s view of another’s problematic behavior.
Unbalancing
An intervention where the therapist intentionally sides with one family member over the other, meant to disrupt homeostasis and encourage change at the behavioral and structural level.
4 Stages
- Joining
- Problem- each member shares viewpoint of problem
- Interaction stage- assessment of family interactions
- Goal setting- what has been tried and failed and add small changes
Goal of Strategic
Symptom relief and to shift family structure
Contributors
Jay Haley
Chloe Madanes
