Structural Family Therapy

Front 1

Who are the key leaders?

Back 1

Minuchin and Fishman

Front 2

What are the goals?

Back 2

clarify, realign, mark boundaries, individuation, changing boundaries to make them more open, closed; healthy.

Front 3

What is the role of the therapist

Back 3

Perturb the system because the structure is too rigid or diffuse

Front 4

is the therapist an expert?

Back 4

Yes

Front 5

Where do problems reside?

Back 5

within the family structure; although, not necessarily caused by the family structure

Front 6

does changing the structure change the client's experience?

Back 6

yes

Front 7

what is mimesis?

Back 7

greek: "to copy"; part of the therapists initial joining and accommodating of a family system

Front 8

What populations is structural therapy particularly suited for?

Back 8

psychosomatic children, adult drug addicts, and anorexia nervosa

Front 9

accomodating

Back 9

A therapeutic tactic, used primarily by structural family therapists, whereby the therapist attempts to make personal adjustments in adapting to the family style in an eff ort to build a therapeutic alliance with the family.

Front 10

alignments

Back 10

Clusters of alliances between family members within the overall family group; affiliations and splits from one another, temporary or permanent, occur in pursuit of homeostasis.

Front 11

boundary making

Back 11

A technique of structural family therapists aimed at realigning boundaries within a family by changing the psychological proximity (closer or further apart) between family subsystems.

Front 12

coalitions

Back 12

Covert alliances or affiliations, temporary or long-term, between certain family members against others in the family.

Front 13

disengagement

Back 13

A family organization with overly rigid boundaries, in which members are isolated and feel unconnected to each other, with each functioning separately and autonomously and without involvement in the day-to-day transactions within the family.

Front 14

enactment

Back 14

In structural family therapy, a facilitating intervention in which the family is induced by the therapist to enact or play out its relationship patterns spontaneously during a therapeutic session, allowing the therapist to observe and ultimately to develop a plan or new set of rules for restructuring future transactions.

Front 15

enmeshment

Back 15

A family organization in which boundaries between members are blurred and members are overconcerned and overinvolved in each other’s lives, limiting individual autonomy.

Front 16

family mapping

Back 16

An assessment technique used by structural family therapists to graphically describe a family’s overall organizational structure and determine which subsystem is involved in dysfunctional transactions.

Front 17

joining

Back 17

Th e therapeutic tactic of entering a family system by engaging its separate members and subsystems, gaining access in order to explore and ultimately to help modify dysfunctional aspects of that system.

Front 18

permeability

Back 18

Th e ease or flexibility with which members can cross subsystem boundaries within the family.

Front 19

power

Back 19

Influence, authority, and control over an outcome.

Front 20

reframing

Back 20

Relabeling behavior by putting it into a new, more positive perspective (“Mother is trying to help” rather than “She’s intrusive”), thus altering the context in which it is perceived and inviting new responses to the same behavior.

Front 21

tracking

Back 21

A therapeutic tactic associated with structural family therapy, in which the therapist deliberately attends to the symbols, style, language, and values of the family, using them to influence the family’s transactional patterns.

Front 22

triangulation

Back 22

A process in which each parent demands that a child ally with him or her against the other parent during parental conflict.

Front 23

unbalancing

Back 23

In structural family therapy, a technique for altering the hierarchical relationship between members of a system or subsystem by supporting one member and thus upsetting family homeostasis.

Front 24

An individual’s symptoms are best understood as rooted in

Back 24

family transaction patterns

Front 25

before the symptoms are relieved, change in what must occur?

Back 25

family organization/structure

Front 26

The therapist must provide what type of role in changing the structure or context in which the symptom is embedded?

Back 26

a directive leadership role

Front 27

what three tenants do structural theorists emphasize?

Back 27

*The wholeness of the family system

*The influence of the family’s hierarchical organization

*The interdependent functioning of its subsystems

Front 28

Children’sproblems often rooted in

Back 28

· marital v. parental subsystem or boundarybetween parents and children.

Front 29

areboth the root of pathology and the family reactions, developed in response to stress,repeated without modification whenever there is family conflict. Both parties experience nonresolution

Repeatingpattern of dysfunctional communication

Back 29

dysfunctional sets

Front 30

judging how intensely a message needs to bedelivered to be heard. (“When did you divorce your wife and marry yourmother?”)

Back 30

affective intensity

Front 31

highlightingstrengths to guide therapy in a positive direction

Back 31

shaping competence

Front 32

therapist joins to unbalance, create room forchange. AVOID CONTENT, focus on structure.

Back 32

self of the therapist

Front 33

covert,unspoken interactional rules that define internal family structure. Thesecreate the structure. (ex: tone/pitch of voice, when someone speaks, etc.)

Back 33

relationship rules

Front 34

*Cultural norms ·

*Interactional patterns ·

*Family of origin · *Intergenerational patterns

*relationship rules

These are all contributions to what?

Back 34

structure

Front 35

parental, sibling, and intergenerational are three types of what?

Back 35

subsets

Front 36

what is an unhealthy type of subset?

Back 36

covert coalition