Structural family therapy

Question 1

Theory of change

Answer 1

Change your curse through restructuring the families organization.

Question 2

Therapist’s Role

Answer 2

Therapist active involved.
Therapist helps the family understand how family structure (relationships and hierarchies) can be changed, the impact of rituals and roles, and how new patterns of interactions can be integrated into the family.

Question 3

Alliances

Answer 3

Subgroup based on gender, generation, developmental tasks

Question 4

Coalitions

Answer 4

Alignments were two or more family members join together to form a bond against another family member.

Question 5

Power Hierarchy

Answer 5

Leadership and direction must be provided by the adults, typically parents. Sometimes when parents are intimidated or insecure, the power is upside down and it leads to chaos.

Question 6

Subsystems

Answer 6

Families organize themselves by generation, relationship, and necessity. Examples: marital subsystem - spouses; parental subsystem: parents; executive subsystem: People who run the family; sibling subsystem - kids.

Question 7

Family map

Answer 7

To the therapist were used to depict the relationship dynamics in the family including subsystems, alliances, coalitions, and boundaries. This tool is used to conceptualize the case outside of the actual therapy. It is not used or shared with the family.

Question 8

Disengaged boundaries

Answer 8

We family members are isolated from each other. Can lead to AOD use and it’s a result of boundaries.

Question 9

Enmeshed boundaries

Answer 9

Family members are overly dependent and too closely and reacted to other family members. Can lead to incest.

Question 10

Interventions: joining

Answer 10

Therapist first task; involves blending in with the family, adapting the families affect, style, and language.

Question 11

Interventions: Tracking

Answer 11

Therapist pays close attention to family members and how they relate to one another during an enactment or spontaneous behavioral sequence, noticing boundaries, coalitions, rolls, rules, etc.

Question 12

Interventions: mimesis

Answer 12

The therapist tracks to family style of communication and uses it.

Question 13

Interventions: unbalancing

Answer 13

Supporting someone who is in one down position, does changing hierarchical position

Question 14

Intervention: reframe

Answer 14

Putting the presenting problem in a perspective that is both different from what the family brings and more workable.

Question 15

Intervention: enactment

Answer 15

The actualization of transactional patterns under the control of the therapist. It allows the therapist to observe how family members mutually regulate their behaviors, and to determine the place of the problem behavior within the sequence of transactions.

Question 16

Intervention: boundary making

Answer 16

Special case of enactment, in which the therapist defines areas of interaction that he rules Open to certain members but close to others. Example: son is asked to leave his chair (in between his parents) and go to another chair on the opposite side of the room, so that is not “caught in the middle.”

Question 17

Phases of Therapy: Beginning

Answer 17

Join with family; both accommodate to and challenge rules of family system; assessment/mapping of hierarchy, alignments, and boundaries; reframing a problem to include whole system.

Question 18

Phases of Therapy: middle

Answer 18

Highlight and modify interactions; utilize enactments of issues to challenge participants and unbalanced the system.

Question 19

Phases of Treatment: End

Answer 19

Review progress made; reinforce structural change; provide tools for future.