Family Systems Therapy

1. Family Systems Therapy S. Frank North Missouri Baptist University April 2003

2. Family Systems Therapy • Background • Began after WW II • Freud • Recognized importance of family, yet refused to see more than one member at a time. • Adler • Student of Freud, believed more in the family system, yet never practiced. • Nathan Ackerman • Extended the analysis beyond the individual to the family.

3. Family Systems Therapy • 1950s and 1960s • Physicians and Psychiatrists • Questioned traditional practices and started to treat families.

4. Family Systems Therapy • 1970s and 1980s • New theories and therapies • Structural • Strategic • Systemic • All focus on on integrating family and individual therapy. Specialization into addiction recovery etc.

5. Family Systems Therapy • 1990s • Solution oriented • Narrative • Competency forward • All focus on families own internal resources to create unique solutions to difficult problems

6. Family Systems Therapy • Theory viewed as a camera • Individual therapy • Focused on individual – feelings, thoughts or experience • Family Therapy • Focus is widened to the context in that individual’s life – family, and observations, hypotheses, and intervention.

7. Family Systems Therapy • Family Structure • Subsystems • Natural – parents, siblings team up. • Unnatural – parent-child team to the exclusion of everyone else. • The therapist evaluates the function of the family through these subsystems

8. Family Systems Therapy • Hierarchy • Usually the parents making decisions to best interest of the children • Problems start when the hierarchy becomes inverted. • The children making decisions for the parents

9. Family Systems Therapy • Boundaries • Rigid • Overly restrictive – permit little contact within family and outside. • Children feel isolated or neglected • Diffuse • External boundaries too open – hard to tell who is family and who isn’t. • Children unattached from each other

10. Family Systems Therapy • Beliefs • Behavior has meaning • One parent thinks action is cute • Another thinks its deplorable • Evolving • As the family evolves, beliefs evolve too. • Linear evolution • Cause and effect – He does this, she does that

11. Family Systems Therapy • Circular pattern • Beliefs define Structure – Structure defines Patterns – Patterns define beliefs. • Therapists role • Analyze the pattern – and intervene to break the dysfunctional patterns.

12. Family Life Stages • Stage 1. The unattached Young adult. Accepting parent-offspring separation. Differentiation from family of origin Development of peer relations Initiation of career  Stage 2. The newly married couple. Commitment to new system. Formation of marital system Making room for spouse with family and friends Adjusting career demands

13. Family Life Stages • Stage 3. The Family with young children. Accepting new members into the system. Adjusting marriage to make room for a child Taking on parenting roles Making room for grandparents • Stage 4. The family with adolescents. Increasing Children’s independence Adjusting family to the needs of specific child. Coping with energy drain and lack of privacy Taking time out to be couple

14. Family Life Stages • Stage 5. Launching children. Accepting exits from and entries into the family system. Adult children into work, college, marriage Maintaining supportive home base Accepting occasional returns of adult children •  Stage 6. The family in later life. Accepting the shifting of generational roles. Maintaining individual and couple functioning Supporting middle generation Coping with death of parents, spouse Closing or adapting family home.

15. Family Systems Therapy • Systemic therapy – brief overview • Therapist interventions • Choice depends on which overview chosen • Structure analysis • Family Genogram • Therapist joins with the family to connect individually for the good of the group • Enactments – new behavior assignments • Specific tasks – assigned to break old patterns and analyze resistance to change.

16. Family Systems Therapy • Approach • Solution oriented • Works on changing the behavior of an individual or dyad in order to change the family relationship. • Some use a Rogerian approach by having the affected member create the solution rather than the therapist.

17. Family Systems Therapy • Redefine • Positive approach to changing the label of behavior – “not pushy” but “helpful” • Escalation • Challenge the client to behave badly

18. Family Systems Therapy • Multiculture • 2000 census • 2.4% of population now identify with more than one race. • Of that percent – 24% are under age 18 • Race-culture identification • Therapists agree that – leaving one identifying race out of the child’s life has lasting impact on the health of the child

19. Family Systems Therapy • Pay close attention to the race and culture when joining the family and intervening in any of the structure, hierarchy, or beliefs.

20. Family Systems Therapy • Basic Beliefs of Family Therapy • Family therapy is as effective or more effective than individual treatment. • Family therapy can produce positive results in short-term treatments. • The involvement of the father in family therapy increases the probability of successful outcome

21. Family Systems Therapy • There is little evidence that one marriage and family therapy approach is superior to another. • Family therapy research has continued into such areas as adult schizophrenia, psychosomatic symptoms, addictions, depression, anxiety, marital distress, and sexual dysfunction.

22. Family Systems Therapy • Family therapy doesn’t have ONE method. It has many combinations of evaluations, intervention methods, and therapies. • It is dependant on the therapist’s skill and experience how to counteract possible years of dysfunction in a family.

23. Family Systems Therapy • Family concerns • No more nuclear family • High divorce rate • Single parent homes • Two parents working • Latch-key children