Structural Family Therapy - definitions
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Boundary Types, etc.
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clear boundary
diffuse boundary
rigid boundary - What are boundaries?
- The rules defining who participates, and how they participate
- 3 types of boundaries
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Disengaged (transactional style)
Clear
Enmeshed (transactional style) - Effects of enmeshed subsystems/families
- Lack of autonomy
- Effects of disengaged
- Lack of responsiveness
- 3 Types of subsystems
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Spousal Subsystem
Parental Subsystem
Sibling Subsystem - Example of a detour involving the mother, father, and child
- Father and mother stressed at work, may come home and criticize each other but then detour their conflict by attacking a child.
- Example of a coalition involving mother, father, and child.
- Husband may criticize the wife, who then seeks a coalition with the child against the father.
- One of the most common precipitators of family stress is the emergence of a child into adolescence. What is a system adaptation that could be made?
- The adolescent should be moved a little away from the sibling subsystem and given increased autonomy and responsibility appropriate to his age. The parental subsystem's transactions with him should change from parents-child to parents-young adult.
- Explain parent-child triagulation
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Each parent demands that the child side with him against the other parent.
Highly dysfunctional structure.
The child is paralyzed. Every movement he makes is defined by one parent as an attack. - Detouring through the child
- In detouring, the negotiation of spouse stresses through the child serves to maintain the spouse subsystem in an illusory harmony. The spouses reinforce any deviant behavior in the child because dealing with him allows them to detour/submerge their own spouse subsystem problems in problems of parenting.
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Identified Patient-
When the family labels one of it's members the IP, the symptoms can be assumed to be system-maintaining, or system-maintained device. -
Therapist's function is to facilitate the transformation of the family system.
Involves 3 main steps:
1. Join the family in a position of leadership.
2. Unearth the underlying family structure.
3. Create circumstances that will allow the transformation of this structure. - In order to transform the family system, the therapist has to intervene so as to
- ...unbalance the system. (Sometimes done by joining with one member).
- What is an effect of a coalition?
- It isolates the outside member.
- The therapist's methods of creating a therapuetic system and positioning himself as its leader are know as...
- ...."joining" operations.
- Explain "tracking."
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The therapist follows the content of the family's communications and behavior and encourages them to continue. He is like a needle tracking grooves in a record. (DONE BY ASKING CLARIFYING QUESTIONS, MAKE APPROVING COMMENTS, OR ELICIT ELABORATION OF A POINT).
Therapist does not challenge what is being said. He positions himself as an interested party. - Describe "mimesis."
- Mimicking (verbally and/or nonverbally)
- "Joining" and "Restructuring"
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"Joining" = therapist becomes an actor in the family play.
"Restructuring" = therapist functions like the director as well as an actor.
One way of restructuring is "spatial-restructuring" in which you change the seating arrangement. - Boundary functions (dysfunctional)
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affiliation
overinvolvement
conflict
coalition
detouring