What Types of Client Problems Are Best Suited for Structural Family Therapy?

Dr. Yvette Stupart is a clinical counselor and educator. She gives insights on how to experience emotional health and relational well-being.

Interactions betwixt family members are an important frame of reference for structural family unit therapists.

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What is the Focus of Family Therapy?

The chief purpose of the unlike approaches to psychotherapy is to help people feel differently, and to modify their thinking and behavior. Individual and family unit therapies are approaches to understand human beliefs, and to treat emotional and psychological difficulties in clients.

While private therapy focuses on helping clients to gain insights on themselves and their problems in order to modify, family therapy emphasizes the family unit arrangement and irresolute its organization. Changing the organization of the family leads to change in the individual members.

The systems perspective views the family equally a self-regulating organization held together by unspoken rules to maintain itself. Structure is a very important, and this defines how a family unit organizes and maintains itself.

What is also important is how the family adapts and changes over fourth dimension; for example, learning to connect with teens. Psychological symptoms are viewed as indications of a dysfunctional family unit. Thus in family therapy, the focus of handling is the family system, and not the problem or symptomatic family member.

Family therapy is a developing field with diverse viewpoints to agreement and working with families, and these approaches include:

• Bowens Family unit Systems
• Strategic
• Structural
• Experiential
• Psychoanalytic
• Solution-Focused
  

This guide focuses on structural family therapy (SFT). If yous are because family unit therapy or want improve you lot noesis on SFT, this article presents relevant information on its origins, key concepts, therapeutic goals, and some of the therapeutic interventions used in the arroyo.

Salvador Minuchin and Structural Family Therapy

Salvador Minuchin- Founder of Structural Family unit therapy

Your Knowledge of Minuchin and SFT

Salvador Minuchin

Salvador Minuchin developed structural family therapy (SFT). This approach is considered to be the about influential approach to family unit therapy worldwide.

Minuchin was born in Argentina in1921, and was trained in child psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He moved to Israel in 1952 and worked with displaced children.

Structural family therapy was developed out of work with people from the lower socioeconomic background. In the 1960s while he was grooming every bit a psychoanalyst, Minuchin began to develop structural family therapy through his work at Wiltwyck School in New York. This was a schoolhouse for boys who were troubled. He recognized that he needed to run into the boys' parents for effective treatment of their problems.

Minuchin was self-taught in family therapy and collaborated with a many of his colleagues including Jay Haley (strategic family unit therapy) in the 1960'southward. He was director and caput of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic from 1965-1981. Information technology was there that he refined the theory and practice of SFT.

Minuchin started his ain center in New York in 1981 where he continued to exercise and teach family therapy until 1996. He retired in 1996 and 2005 and continued to travel and teach across the world. He has contributed to numerous professional journals and co-authored many books including, "The Craft of Family Therapy: Challenging Certainties" which was one his latest boo1000. In this book, Minuchin includes the basic principles of Structural Family Therapy (SFT) and explores the arts and crafts of the arroyo.

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Overview and Part Play of Structural Family Therapy

Important Concepts in Structural Family Therapy

Structural Family unit Therapy is concerned about how families are organized, and the rules that govern their transactions. According to this arroyo, family issues are maintained by dysfunctional family structures or organisation.

Families are organized in subsystems with boundaries regulating the way the members collaborate with each other. SFT recognizes families are competent and capable to solve their own problems. The approach also retains traditional views concerning the importance of power and hierarchy in the family unit.

SFT is an arroyo to understanding the nature of the family unit, the presenting problem, and the process of alter. This modify occurs in family members through a new fashion of their thinking and restructuring of their relationships. The hierarchies, and the articulate and even the hidden rules, must be understood before the therapist can assist the family to change. This change could outcome in a better mode of parenting and interacting in the family unit.

The three essential concepts in SFT are:

• family structure
• family subsystems
• boundaries

The members of a family unit cannot exist understood in isolation because they office together.

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Family unit Subsystems

The family unit is a bones human system and consists of various subsystems. These are subgroups within the family unit'southward structure with the responsibility to carry out diverse family tasks. Subsystems in families could be based on generations, gender, and common interests and part functions

These subsystems categories include:

• spousal (married woman and husband)
• Parental (mother and father)
• Sibling (children)
• Extended (grandparents, other relatives)

The to a higher place subsystem categories are common, only there are numerous possibilities of sub-groupings. For example, a mother and her youngest child could form a tight subsystem from which others are excluded).

Each family member plays a different role in different sub-groups (subsystems). For example, in the example of Pauline who is married with two children. She is a mother in the parental subsystem, a wife in the spousal subsystem, and 3rd sister in the sibling subsystem of her own family unit of origin.

Each subsystem has appropriate tasks and functions. So when ane subsystem, for case, the sibling subsystem, intrudes on another subsystem, such as the spousal subsystem, where information technology does not belong, this could upshot in structural difficulties.

Outcomes of Family Therapy

Family Construction

In that location are rules that organize the way the family interacts, and different families collaborate differently depending on their rules. These repeated interactions promote expectations that establish lasting patterns.

Co-ordinate to Minuchin and his colleagues in Mastering Family Therapy, "Family members adapt to family unit rules that allocate roles and functions.This adaptation fosters shine functioning, anticipating responses, security, loyalty, and harmony" (p. 33).

It is possible to understand the structure that governs a family'southward communication patterns by observing the family unit'due south actions. This would include which family unit fellow member says what to whom, in what fashion, and also the results of the interaction. In improver, it is important to observe how appropriate the hierarchical structure in the family is.

The repeated sequences emerging in family unit therapy reveal the structural patterns of the family. But the family unit construction is reinforced past expectations that establish rules in it. The construction is too shaped partly by general, and partly by family specific constraints. For example, all families take some kind of hierarchical structure, with adult and children having differing amounts of dominance (Nichols & Schwartz, 2005).

If the underlying structure is altered, this will have ripple furnishings on all the family transactions. So according to Jorge Colapinto, "Consistent with its basic tenet that the problems brought to therapy are ultimately dysfunctions of the family unit structure, the model looks for a therapeutic solution in the modification of such construction."

In structural family therapy, the son is considered a fellow member of the sibling subsystem while the father is a member of parental subsystem.

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Boundaries

Boundaries are invisible barriers that allow contact between individuals, subsystems, and families. They protect the integrity of subsystems by regulating what enters and leaves them. For example, when children are allowed to freely interrupt their parents' conversation, this erodes the boundaries separating the generations and the spousal subsystems from the sibling subsystem.

Boundaries range from rigid to diffuse. Rigid boundaries are very restrictive and let trivial contact with outside subsystems. This leads in disengagement, where individuals or subsystems within the family become isolated. This could limit affection and support in the family system

Diffuse boundaries are unclear to the extent that others can intrude into them. They atomic number 82 to enmeshment, where family members become over-involved in each other's lives. While a sense of common support is beneficial, likewise much could upshot in lack of autonomy and dependence.

Articulate or healthy boundaries are an appropriate blending of rigid and diffuse features. While articulate boundaries aid family members attain a sense of their own individuality, they too lead to sense of overall belonging inside the family system.

The lines below illustrate the three types of boundaries.

• ____________ Rigid boundary (disengagement)
• - - - - - - - - - - - Articulate boundary (healthy range)
• . . . . . . . . . ...... Diffuse boundary (enmeshment)

Couples (the spousal subsystem) must maintain a boundary around their relationship despite the demands of their children (sibling subsystem).

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Key Concepts in Structural Family Therapy

Construction	Subsystem	Boundaries
Organized patterns by which members of the family interact	Families comprise of coexisting subsystems	Regulate the contact between subsystems
Expectations reinfoce family structure	Subsystems include spousal, parental. sibling and extended	Range from rigid to diffuse
Sequences during family interactions reveal the structural patterns of the family arrangement	Members in a subsystem join together to perform tasks for the do good of the subsystem and the whole family	Rigit boundaries allow footling contact with outside subsystems
Appropriate hierarchical construction is important in the family	Each family unit member may belong to several subsystems at the same fourth dimension	Diffuse boundaries allow others to intrude into subsystems, leading to enmeshment
Observing the interactions among members indicates the construction	The spousal subsystem is specially important for family functioning	Clear boundaries are appropriate and facilitate parental and family unity

Change occurs in family members through adjusting their thinking and reorganizing of their relationships.

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Goals and Techniques of Structural Family Therapy

The primary goal of SFT is to bring nigh structural changes within the family unit system. This is achieved by modifying the family'south way of interacting and developing appropriate boundaries. Another goal is to create an effective hierarchical structure where parents are in charge of their children.

The functions of the therapist are to:

• Join the family unit in a position of leadership and so that it is active and involved.
• Map the family unit's underlying construction (boundaries, hierarchy, and subsystems) and identify its potential for change.
• Program and implement interventions to transform an ineffective structure to salubrious functioning.

Some techniques structural family unit therapists use include:

1. Joining and Accommodating

Joining is the process of edifice a therapeutic alliance with every member of the family to get a flick of how the family interacts. From his or her initial greetings and comments, the therapist eases the family members' anxiety and wins them over. For it is important to build alliance with each member of the family. The therapist conveys respect for the individuals in the family unit, and for the hierarchical construction.

2. Working with Family Interactions

The therapist gains insight on the problem through observing enactment or the spontaneous behavior sequences that explain information technology. Through this practice, the therapist elicits data most the family unit structure and could help to:

• Detect if the boundaries are articulate, if for case, 2 people can speak with beingness interrupted
• Determine who is on the defensive and who attacks
• Place family members who are primal and those who are on the periphery
• Find out if there is enmeshment, for example, parents bringing the children into their discussions.

The SFT approach aims at changing the family structure, and promoting positive interactions for healthy family functioning.

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iii. Mapping Underlying Structure

The family unit structure is revealed when members collaborate, and mapping captures the interrelationship of the members. The therapist draws a family map to identify rigid, lengthened or clear boundaries, transactional styles, and the structure of the family system, to discover changes that are needed in the system.

four. Enactments

The therapist encourages members to function play family conflicts inside the session. He or she observes as family members demonstrate how they deal with conflicts. Then the therapist devises interventions to change their interactions, and creates structural changes in the family.

6. Boundary Making (Restructuring)

Boundary making restructures the boundaries and increases either closeness or distance between family systems. For case, in enmeshed families interventions are intended to strengthen boundaries between subsystems and increase independence of individuals.

7. Unbalancing

During unbalancing, the therapist joins and supports, that is, briefly take side with 1 individual or subsystem as opposed to another. The goal is to use his potency to break an impasse in the family unit system, and change the relationships in a subsystem or between subsystems.

Summary of Important Concepts About Structural Family unit Therapy

• Salvador Minuchin developed structural family therapy (SFT).
• Three important concepts in SFT are family unit structure, family unit subsystem and boundaries.
• Family unit structure is dependent on the repeated interactions in the family, and its hierarchical construction.
• Family subsystem includes spousal, parental, and sibling
• Boundaries range from rigid to diffuse.
• Rigid boundaries pb to disengagement.
• Diffuse boundaries pb to enmeshment.
• A combination of the features of rigid and diffuse is considered as healthy (clear) boundaries.
• The primary goal of SFT is to bring modify within the construction of the family system.
• The structural family therapist assesses the family and instructs family members to interact to make up one's mind the structure and changes necessary.
• Some SFt techniques include joining, enactment and unbalancing.
• SFT is suited for treating unlike types of families such equally unmarried parents, nuclear, blended and extended families.

Harry Aponte Describes Structural Family Therapy

Closing Thoughts on Structural Family Therapy

This guide is intended to help you understand SFT's system focus on the problem of the family'due south structure rather than the individual perspective. Fundamental to the approach is understanding the concepts of family construction, subsystem,and boundaries.

With an emphasis on these central concepts, the primary goal of therapy is to assist to bring about structural changes in the family. Therefore structural family therapists are active in family sessions, every bit they make suggestions, and direct the activities of the family.

Importantly, structural family unit therapists focus on modifying the family structure inside the immediate therapeutic context. As such, they employ techniques including enactments, highlighting and modifying interactions, unbalancing, and boundary making to restructure family unit dynamics during the sessions.

References

Colapinto, J. (1982). Structural family therapy. Retrieved from http://www.colapinto.com/files/SFT.medico Accessed August 21, 2013.

Corey, G. (2001). Theory and practice of counselling and psychotherapy (6^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Doorey, Marie. Minuchin, Salvador. Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 21 Feb. 2014

Goldenberg I. & Goldenberg, H. (1995). Family therapy, pp. 356-385. In Raymond J. Corsini, & Wedding, D. (Eds.) Current Psychotherapies. Itasca, IL: Peacock Publishers.

Munichin, Southward., Lee, W. & Simon, J. (1996). Mastering family therapy: Journeys of growth and transformation.. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, Inc.

Nichols, Chiliad. P. & Schwartz, R. C. (2006). Family therapy: Concepts and methoddue south. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

This content is accurate and true to the all-time of the writer's knowledge and does non substitute for diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, prescription, and/or dietary communication from a licensed health professional. Drugs, supplements, and natural remedies may have dangerous side effects. If pregnant or nursing, consult with a qualified provider on an individual footing. Seek immediate aid if you are experiencing a medical emergency.

© 2014 Yvette Stupart PhD

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on December 04, 2017:

Hello Marshalee, I am very happy that y'all institute the information on Structural Family Therapy helpful. All the best for your oral exam. I am certain your training will pay off.

Marshalee Johnson Spencer on December 04, 2017:

Hi Dr. Stupart. Give thanks you for this post. It has assisted me in understanding this particular family therapy amend. The information is surely useful for my upcoming oral exams in Counselling Psychology at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on October 26, 2017:

Hi Thomas, thanks for reading my hub and your kind words. I am happy that you found the cloth helpful in your studies. All the best for your graduate work in Counseling Psychology.

Thomas Kiseu ( tkiseu@yahoo.com) on October 26, 2017:

Thanks a lot for the wealth of knowledge you have shared in this commodity. I constitute your explanation in SFT easy to understand and was very helpful in my studies. Am currently in my postgraduate 2nd year Counselling Psychology studying at Kenyatta University in Mombasa , Kenya( East Africa)

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on Baronial thirteen, 2017:

Thanks Martha. I am happy y'all plant my commodity on Structural Family Therapy helpful.

Martha Anhalt on August 13, 2017:

Your methods of explanation and summary are clear and well washed throughout this article. Thank you so much.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on July 23, 2017:

Hi Andy, I am happy you found my hub helpful. I wish you all the best for your studies and your pursuits to help at-risk teens and their families.

Andy Fires on July 22, 2017:

Thank you for posting this information. I am a 3rd year educatee at Fresno Pacific University studying Social Piece of work. The form I'k in right now focuses on family therapy, and different ways to approach information technology. Since my overall focus is to help at-chance teens, family therapy will be a big part of the picture show. I plant this information to be very helpful in the current assignment. Thank you again for your efforts.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on January 31, 2017:

Thank you Nikita for commenting on my hub and for your kind words. I wish you all the all-time for your further studies.

Nikita Thompson on Jan 31, 2017:

Skillful afternoon,

I enjoyed reading your commodity. I was introduced to SFT / Salvador Minuchin principles while in school here in Maryland. ( Washington Adventist University/ B. Sc. Counseling Psychology) . I am considering further study to apply to post graduate coursework/clients. Please keep to share your knowledge, I greatly capeesh it.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on October 31, 2016:

Howdy Silvia, thanks for reading my article. I don't know whatever clinician who applies Structural Family unit Therapy in that area. Nevertheless, you could contact the Minuchin Middle for Family. They might be able to give yous the information you need.

Silvia Hurtado on October 31, 2016:

How-do-you-do Yvette, I learned about SFT at Austral University in Argentina while studying Family Counseling. Exercise yous know nearly a psychologist who applies this method in Chesapeake area. Md, DC, Baltimore?

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on Dec 04, 2015:

Hi Tamika, thank you for visiting my hub. I am so happy to hear that you found information technology helpful.

Yes, I am a graduate of Regent Academy and I had a peachy feel there. All the best for your studies and professional person development at Regent!

Tamika L on December 04, 2015:

After reading your bio, I see that you were also a graduate of Regent where I am completing my degree! Thanks, I look frontward to reading more from you.

Tamika L on December 04, 2015:

Thank you so much, I am a educatee in counseling. This information is very helpful to the new counselor.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on March 26, 2014:

Thank you DDE. Structural family therapy focuses on changing dysfunctional behaviors in a family unit through improving the organization and boundaries in the family organisation

Devika Primić from Dubrovnik, Croatia on March 26, 2014:

Family life is and then of import and your means sounds most useful.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on March 15, 2014:

Thanks for reading my hub Eiddwen, and I'1000 happy you found it interesting.

Eiddwen from Wales on March fifteen, 2014:

Very interesting and voted up.

Eddy.

Yvette Stupart PhD (writer) from Jamaica on March 04, 2014:

Thanks for you comments mylindaelliott. Structural family therapy is a popular approach to family therapy.

mylindaelliott from Louisiana on March 03, 2014:

Interesting approach to therapy. I call up I have experienced parts of this but it wasn't called Structural Family Therapy.

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on February 25, 2014:

Cheers FlourishAnyWay. Structural family unit therapy is said to be the almost popular arroyo to family unit therapy worldwide. One forcefulness is that it can exist used effectively with different types of families - nuclear, composite, single parent, etc.

FlourishAnyway from United states on Feb 25, 2014:

I wasn't familiar with this, and I was very interested in your description here. Voted up and more than!

Yvette Stupart PhD (author) from Jamaica on February 25, 2014:

Cheers for your comments MsDora. Yes, the the focus of structural family therapy is to deal with the construction of the family system which includes the interactions and hierarchy. Change in the arrangement of the family unit leads to change in family members.

Dora Weithers from The Caribbean area on Feb 25, 2014:

Interesting concept of dealing with the family structure instead of the family member. I can encounter how the procedures tin influence the members and make the whole family more functional.

Yvette Stupart PhD (writer) from Jamaica on Feb 24, 2014:

Thank you for visiting hub and commenting.

Raymond Philippe from Kingdom of the netherlands on February 24, 2014:

I wasn't familiar with this approach. Very interesting. Voted as interesting. Thanks for sharing

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Source: https://youmemindbody.com/mental-health/A-Guide-to-Structural-Family-Therapy

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