A LOOK AT STRUCTURAL FAMILY THERAPY

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Psychological Theories podcast.In this podcast, we take a journey
into the human mind with one psychologicaltheory at a time. So let's begin.
Welcome back, folks. Today we'regoing to be looking at structured family
therapy or structural family therapy. Thereare many types of family therapy, but

(00:22):
structural family therapy is among the mostpopular. It's emphasis is on a whole
family base rather than trying to figureout each individual's issues first. If you've
ever done therapy or been to therapy, one of the knocks against structural family
therapy not about its efficacy or howgood it is. It's really the difficulty
of getting family members to come.This is usually the challenge. But let's

(00:43):
say you do and structural family therapy. Therapists work to uncover any habitual patterns,
routines, or behaviors. They lookat the family dynamics that negatively impact
the family. This is very importantfor them. They want to see the
roles that are happening between these individuals, who sides with who. This is
called triangulation, or they'll look tosee it. For instance, if the

(01:04):
daughter and the mother are more close, really closely associated or connected than the
dad and the daughter and are theyganging up on the dad or vice versa.
Could be the daughter and the dad. It could be the mother and
father against the daughter or the son. Whatever it is, it's this two
against one mentality that we're also lookingfor. There's other things we're going to

(01:26):
be talking about in a second.Structural family therapy is often recommended for families
who have gone through trauma, blendedfamilies. That works very well, single
parent families, and families at risk, although any kind of family can attend.
And again it's really important to understandthe dynamics and the communication between these
individuals. So a lot of timesthe therapists will go in and out.

(01:48):
What I mean by that is they'llget into the session listening to what's happening,
become a part of that family dynamic, and then at the same time
step outside and become that therapist role. Again. They're going to try to
solicit communication between them. So anSFT practitioners well know, will observe the
family like I was mentioning and takenote of the family's overall structure. So
the roles, the habits, who'swe're in control, who's in charge,

(02:12):
what are some of the boundaries thatare associated both healthy and unhealthy. After
creating it kind of a chart,the therapists can then move forward and identifying
any specific issues that need to beaddressed and which of the observed issues are
causing the most problems to create areally comprehensive treatment plan. The reason the
family came in will also be takeninto account. You have what they call
an identified patient. So in otherwords, the family will come in and

(02:35):
say, oh, my son hasthe trouble. But the structure for the
structural family therapists won't look at thesun solely. He's going to look at
everybody. He's going to look atall the the communication and the relationship between
everybody, the boundaries that are happening. He's gonna look at the family dynamics.
He's not going to worry about orshe about that identified patient. So
the reason the family will come into taking into account. But when creating

(02:58):
the outline, families might come inbecause a child's having trouble on schools.
I mentioned, the whole family's affected, and so they're going to be looking
at the relationships. The therapists willbegin to evaluate the aspects of the family
dynamics that are causing at tension anddiscord what's going on here. A lot
of role playing can be part ofthe treatment, discussing feelings and perceptions,

(03:20):
really improving the communication, which isprobably the essence of most therapy, encouraging
family members to communicate in a safespace and helping them communicate. Sometimes people
don't distinguish between emotions and thoughts orbeliefs. For instance, if you say
what are they doing that upsets you? Somebody will say, well, they're
coming home late, for instance,and then they say, okay, and

(03:44):
how does it make you feel whenthey come home late? Now, the
keyword is here is feel. Buta lot of times we'll they'll do is
that some people will say, well, they just show, they don't show,
they show disrespect, they don't reallycare that, they don't care what
I say, they don't listen.But that's not a feeling, that's a
belief. And it's really important becauseif you can get that a person to

(04:04):
tap into the feeling of well itreally hurts me or it angers me,
then you can start getting into whythat person's feeling those feelings. The other
individual can understand better why their parentmight be upset or hurt or whatnot,
and then communication will typically flow muchbetter at this point because people start getting

(04:25):
more of an understanding of where it'scoming from. When the person who may
not even realize why they're angry orhurt to the person who is doing the
act that's causing or leading to theother individual to be hurt or angry.
A lot of times, family membersmay be encouraged to view the therapist as
a guide to develop clear and morehelpful language rather than shouting or blaming,

(04:46):
which usually you'll see a lot ofin therapy. Initially, a therapist essentially
becomes part of the family. Duringthe session, they engage, they join
in as what it's called as they'rerequired to move in and out of the
family actions and interesting dynamics to createa safe space in which the vent speak
and open up. And then ofcourse they also do a lot of role
playing, act as a sort ofthe Devil's advocate, escalating interactions to see
how they respond, what kind ofway do they interact with conflict? This

(05:10):
is really important. How do youdo conflict resolution within families? It isn't
all about the boardrooms, folks.A lot of times it's the families are
you yelling, Are you screaming,Are you blaming? Are you accusing?
Are you being irrational? These areall things that are going to be looked
at. Is there any bullying goingon? Anything else? Therapists may take
a side or encourage the opinion ofone family member who's maybe their voice is

(05:30):
not heard as often. Maybe they'rea weaker family member in the sense of
being able to voice their opinion,and this allows them to voice their opinion
in a more safe environment. Itgets everybody else to get a better understanding
of that family member. So thoseare some ideas of how structural family therapy
will work, and there's a lotof dynamics that happen. It's as a

(05:51):
practitioner, it's really extremely fascinating towatch the interaction between this and hopefully for
you and yourself. If you havefamily members, listen to how each other
communicate. Watch if there's more thantwo, obviously, if there's a family,
you got children and whatnot, listento how you communicate with them.
Watch how they communicate with each other. Watch how you communicate with your spouse.

(06:14):
Because your children are watching, andthis is all very important because how
you communicate with your spouse a lotof times how you communicate your children are
going to communicate with you, especiallyif they're younger. I warn you now,
if they're six or seven or eightyears of age, how you're communicating
with your spouse for them, it'sgonna start haunting you if you're not doing
it well, because they're gonna startcommunicating that way as they get older in

(06:35):
adolescents because they learned it from you, and they're gonna probably behave that way
to others. So be careful withthat and make sure and if it's not
and you're handling it well and youwant to be the best you can be
a lot of times, just learnand make sure you're tapping into the feelings
of the individual and really get tothe feeling, not just their beliefs.

(06:55):
That's it for now,