The Benefits Of Structural Family Therapy

In our society families are the foundation of all human relationships. Therefore learning to maintain and develop healthy families are the goals of family therapist. Counselors can use the Structural Family Therapy approach in counseling hurting families. The pioneer of structural family therapy is Salvador Minuchin (Hammond & Nichols, 2008).
Structural family therapists have exemplified within the context relational therapies that uncovers stressors in relationship between individuals (Vetere, 2001). Structural family therapy has been known to be called “interventive approach” because of the “intensity” to encourage clients to change (Hammond & Nichols, 2008). Structure therapy states that psychopathology is preserved and created not through …show more content…
This is the identified patient, whom the family labels as having problems or being the problem. However, when a family labels one of its members as the “patient,” the identified patient’s symptoms can be assumed to be a system maintaining or a system-maintained device (Minuchin, 2005). The symptom may be an expression of a family dysfunction or it may have arisen in the individual family member because of his particular life circumstances and then been supported by the family system. In either case, the family’s consensus that one member is the problem indicates that, on some level, the symptom is reinforced by the system (Minuchin, 2005). This is the same situation that the family in the video is in, the mother and the family have labeled one person (Megan) as having the problem however, the problem actually lies within the subsystem of the family and their dysfunctions of being enmeshed and disengaged. From this standpoint the way Dr. Bitters is handling the family structure these techniques can be transferred to any ethnic group including the Hispanic …show more content…
This leadership involves responsibility for what happens. The therapist must assess the family and develop therapeutic goals based on that assessment and must intervene in ways that facilitate the transformation of the family system in the direction of those goals (Minuchin, 2005). The target of these interventions is the family. Although individuals must not be ignored, the therapist’s focus is on enhancing the operation of the family system. The family will be the matrix of the healing and growth of its members. The responsibility for reaching this state, or for failing to do so, belongs to the therapist in collaboration with the family (Minuchin, 2005). The only suggestion or modification the writer feels would be necessary is that the therapist should be culturally competent in order to form a strong bond and establish trust with the family they are working with. The writer sees this as the only way to walk the family through the process of change and to help them meet their goals and create