Structural Family Therapy

The family system is founded on the notions that for change to occur in the life of an individual, the therapist must understand and work with the family as a whole. In working with the family, the therapist can understand how the individual in counseling functions within his family system and how the client’s behaviors connect to other people in the family. This theory also holds the perception that symptoms are a set of family habits and patterns passed down by generation and not a result of a psychological problem or an inability to change (Corey, 2017). Furthermore, the family system theory holds the idea that when a change occurs everyone in the unit is affected by the change.

A therapist will face problems, issues and client troubles everyday. The professional must understand how their client relates to the world around them. These feelings and ideas affect how the client sees the problem and how they respond to their situation. Their actions, in turn, have bearing on individual thoughts, needs, and emotions. The therapist must be aware of the client's history, values, and culture in order to provide effective therapy. This paper will outline and provide information as to the importance of cultural competence and diversity in family therapy.

Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson.

The movie Ordinary People is a movie which looks at a family struck by tragedy, It shows how an upper middle-class family handles life when tragedy strikes unexpectedly, and family order is turned into chaos. The movie in essence sheds light into a family, due to a tragedy, has turned into separate individuals living in the same house, who lack of communicating their grief effectively. The movie was shown through a realistic lens, without over dramatization; looked into misplaced guilt at every level. The inability of the family to work through the tragedies lead them to a place where they each felt a breakdown within each other as well as the family dynamic.

Structural family therapy is associated with the work of Salvador Minuchin and is an evidence based therapy influenced by brief strategic and eco-systemic structural family therapy (Gerhart, 2014). Structural family therapists are active in the counseling sessions and will want to have all of the members of the family participate in the counseling sessions. The therapist is then able to map family structures in order to resolve relation problems between family members. The therapist will then make assessments and set goals to restructure the family interactions while focusing on family strengths.

Cultural competency is critical in psychology practice. In the United States, the groups, which considered as cultural and ethnic minorities, are growing in the population (APA, 2003). Culture often influences the content and quality of people’s experience, perception, and response. Thus, it is important for psychologists to be aware of cultural influences on client’s presenting experience(s) (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2010). Without a regard for cultural influence, there is a significant risk for the psychologist to misunderstand, misinterpret, and misguide his or her client. Such misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misguidance are not only unhelpful but can be detrimental for the client (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2011; Pope, & Vasquez, 2011).

One of the prominent aspects of SFT is that it can be implemented with a wide variety of client’s, presenting problems and can be patently integrated with other models to address different populations. Navarre (1998) states that SFT is a model that can be used to treat a wide variety of culturally diverse dysfunctional families. According to Navarre (1998) SFT is ideal when working with Chinese and vietnamese families due to the high levels of structure with clear generational boundaries and roles this culture holds. As stated by Navarre (1998) hispanic families such as Mexican-Americans and Cuban families hold characteristics that fit well with SFT; these cultures include extended family members, rely on authority/respect and discourage interactions outside of the family which adds stress to other family members. According to McNeil, Herschberger and Nedela (2013). SFT and community family therapy were integrated and said to be useful in addressing low-income families with adolescents involved in gangs. Although this model has not been adjusted to specifically address couples the same guidelines are used to treat couples effectively (Calapinto, 1991). The couples that are treated using SFT are looked at as another subsystem and their interactions with other family members.

My first assumption of family therapy was to involve the parents and the individual that had the problem. This book explored further what it

Structural Family Therapy (SFT) was invented by Salvador Minuchin while working with lower-socioeconomic-level Black families (Gladding, 2015). A main premise of the theory is that “an individual’s

In the Structural Family Therapy model, therapy is not focused solely on the individual, but upon the person within the family system (Colapinto, 1982; Minuchin, 1974). The major idea behind viewing the family in this way is that “an individual’s symptoms are best understood when examined in the context of the family interactional patterns,” (Gladding, 1998, p. 210). In SFT, there are two basic assumptions: 1) families possess the skills to solve their own problems; and 2) family members usually are acting with good intentions, and as such, no

Systemic family therapy is an approach that works with families and those who are in close relationships to foster change. These changes are viewed in terms of the systems of interaction between each person in the family (Jude, 2015).

The purpose of this paper is to prepare an annotated bibliography on family therapy with emphasis on ethnicity and sociocultural influences on the problems of communication. This research includes twelve resources on authors with the following annotations: Delineation of the main focus or purpose of each author 's work; Background and credibility of each author; Intended audience for the work; Any unique feature of the work; Theoretical understandings; Family therapy strategies or techniques; and a Conclusion or observations presented in the work.

therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of

Solution-Focused Family Therapy is a group treatment based on over twenty years of theoretical development, clinical practice, and empirical research. Solution-Focused Family Therapy is different in many ways from traditional approaches to treatment. It is a competency based model, which minimizes importance of past problems, and instead focuses on clients’ strengths and what has worked for the clients. There is a focus on working from the client’s understandings of her or his concerns and situations and determine what they might want to be

Through research and gathering an understanding of structural family therapy the the therapist will be able to identify the hierarchy within the family unit, identify what subsystems are present, as well as where does each family member fall as it pertains to boundaries. The agents of change will be the family members in partnership with the therapist and (b) the family therapist entity in partnership with extrafamilial helpers (Gehart, 2014,