Support for the Alienated Parent.ã¢â‚¬â American Journal of Family Therapy
Family unit therapy
Photograph by: Lisa F. Young
Definition
Family therapy is a type of psychotherapy that involves all members of a nuclear family or stepfamily and, in some cases, members of the extended family (e.g., grandparents). A therapist or team of therapists conducts multiple sessions to help families deal with important bug that may interfere with the functioning of the family and the home environment.
Purpose
The goal of family therapy is to help family unit members ameliorate communication, solve family unit problems, understand and handle special family unit situations (for example, death, serious physical or mental illness, or child and boyish problems), and create a better functioning dwelling house surround. For families with one member who has a serious concrete or mental illness, family therapy can educate families about the illness and work out bug associated with care of the family member. For children and adolescents, family therapy most often is used when the child or boyish has a personality, anxiety , or mood disorder that impairs their family unit and social functioning, and when a stepfamily is formed or begins having difficulties adjusting to the new family unit life. Families with members from a mixture of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds, besides as families made up of same-sexual practice couples who are raising children, may also do good from family therapy.
Clarification
Family therapy is more often than not conducted by a therapist or team of therapists who are trained and experienced in family and group therapy techniques. Therapists may be psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, or counselors. Family therapy involves multiple therapy sessions, ordinarily lasting at least one hr each, conducted at regular intervals (for instance, once weekly) for several months. Typically, family unit therapy is initiated to address a specific problem, such every bit an adolescent with a psychological disorder or adjustment to a death in the family unit. Nonetheless, ofttimes, therapy sessions reveal additional problems in the family, such as advice issues. In a therapy session, therapists seek to clarify the process of family unit interaction and communication as a whole and do not have sides with specific family members. Therapists who work equally a squad tin can model new behaviors for the family unit through their interactions with each other during a session.
Family therapy is based on family systems theory, in which the family is viewed as a living organism rather than just the sum of its individual members. Family therapy uses systems theory to evaluate family members in terms of their position or role within the arrangement equally a whole. Issues are treated by irresolute the manner the organization works rather than trying to ready a specific member. Family systems theory is based on several major concepts.
Concepts in family unit therapy
THE IDENTIFIED PATIENT The identified patient (IP) is the family unit member with the symptom that has brought the family into handling. Children and adolescents are ofttimes the IP in family unit therapy. The concept of the IP is used by family therapists to keep the family from scapegoating the IP or using him or her every bit a manner of avoiding bug in the rest of the arrangement.
HOMEOSTASIS (Remainder) Homeostasis means that the family system seeks to maintain its customary organisation and functioning over fourth dimension, and it tends to resist change. The family therapist can use the concept of homeostasis to explicate why a certain family symptom has surfaced at a given time, why a specific member has become the IP, and what is likely to happen when the family begins to alter.
THE EXTENDED FAMILY FIELD The extended family field includes the immediate family and the network of grandparents and other relatives of the family unit. This concept is used to explain the intergenerational transmission of attitudes, problems, behaviors, and other problems. Children and adolescents oft do good from family therapy that includes the extended family unit.
DIFFERENTIATION Differentiation refers to the ability of each family unit fellow member to maintain his or her own sense of self, while remaining emotionally connected to the family. One marking of a healthy family unit is its chapters to allow members to differentiate, while family unit members still feel that they are members in skillful standing of the family unit.
TRIANGULAR RELATIONSHIPS Family systems theory maintains that emotional relationships in families are usually triangular. Whenever two members in the family system have problems with each other, they will "triangle in" a third member every bit a style of stabilizing their own relationship. The triangles in a family system usually interlock in a fashion that maintains family homeostasis. Common family triangles include a kid and his or her parents; two children and 1 parent; a parent, a child, and a grandparent; three siblings; or, husband, wife, and an in-law.
In the early on 2000s, a new systems theory, multisystemic therapy (MST), has been applied to family therapy and is expert most often in a home-based setting for families of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances. MST is frequently referred to equally a "family unit-ecological systems approach" because it views the family's ecology, consisting of the various systems with which the family and child interact (for example, home, schoolhouse, and customs). Several clinical studies have shown that MST has improved family relations, decreased boyish psychiatric symptoms and substance use, increased school omnipresence, and decreased re-arrest rates for adolescents in problem with the law. In addition, MST can reduce out-of-dwelling house placement of disturbed adolescents.
Training
In some instances the family may take been referred to a specialist in family therapy past their pediatrician or other principal care provider. Information technology is estimated that as many every bit 50 percent of part visits to pediatricians have to do with developmental problems in children that are affecting their families. Some family unit doctors use symptom checklists or psychological screeners to assess a family unit'southward need for therapy. For children and adolescents with a diagnosed psychological disorder, family therapy may exist added to individual therapy if family issues are identified equally contributing factors during individual therapy.
Family therapists may be either psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, or other professionals certified by a specialty lath in marriage and family unit therapy. They ordinarily evaluate a family for treatment past scheduling a serial of interviews with the members of the immediate family unit, including young children, and meaning or symptomatic members of the extended family. This procedure allows the therapist(south) to detect out how each member of the family sees the problem, too as to form first impressions of the family'south performance. Family therapists typically wait for the level and types of emotions expressed, patterns of potency and submission, the roles played by family members, communication styles, and the locations of emotional triangles. They too annotation whether these patterns are rigid or relatively flexible.
Preparation also usually includes drawing a genogram, which is a diagram that depicts significant persons and events in the family unit'south history. Genograms include annotations about the medical history and major personality traits of each member. Genograms help uncover intergenerational patterns of behavior, spousal relationship choices, family alliances and conflicts, the beingness of family secrets, and other information that sheds low-cal on the family unit'south present situation.
Precautions
Individual therapy for one or more family unit members may be recommended to avoid volatile interaction during a family therapy session. Some families are not considered suitable candidates for family therapy. They include:
- families in which one, or both, of the parents is psychotic or has been diagnosed with antisocial or paranoid personality disorder
- families whose cultural or religious values are opposed to, or suspicious of, psychotherapy
- families with members who cannot participate in treatment sessions because of physical illness or similar limitations
- families with members with very rigid personality structures (Here, members might be at risk for an emotional or psychological crunch.)
- families whose members cannot or will not be able to run into regularly for treatment
Risks
The primary adventure in family therapy is the possible unsettling of rigid personality defenses in individuals or relationships that had been frail before the beginning of therapy. Intensive family therapy may also be difficult for family members with diagnosed psychological disorders. Family therapy may be specially difficult and stressful for children and adolescents who may not fully sympathise interactions that occur during family therapy. Adding individual therapy to family therapy for children and adolescents with the same therapist (if appropriate) or a therapist who is aware of the family therapy can be helpful.
Normal results
Normal results vary, simply in good circumstances, they include greater insight, increased differentiation of private family members, improved advice inside the family, loosening of previously automated behavior patterns, and resolution of the problem that led the family to seek treatment.
Parental concerns
Stepfamilies , which are increasing in prevalence, are excellent candidates for family therapy. Children and adolescents in stepfamilies oftentimes have difficulties adjusting, and participating in family therapy can be beneficial. Stepfamilies, increasingly referred to as "blended families," experience unique pressures within each new family unit. Stepfamily researchers, family therapists, and the Stepfamily Clan of America (SAA) view the term equally inaccurate because it seems to suggest that members of a stepfamily blend into an entirely new family unit, losing their individuality and attachment to other outside family members. Because other family types (biological, single-parent, foster, adoptive) are divers past the parent-kid relationship, the SAA believes that the term "stepfamily" more accurately reflects that relationship and is consistent with other family definitions. Viewing the stepfamily every bit a blended family unit can lead to unrealistic expectations, dislocated and conflicted children, difficult adjustment, and in many cases, failure of the matrimony and family. Family therapy can aid family unit members deal with these bug.
Children and adolescents and, in some cases fifty-fifty the parents, may exist reluctant to participate in family therapy. Abode-based family therapy has in the early on 2000s go available as an selection for families with severely disturbed adolescents and family unit members reluctant to see a therapist. In home-based therapy, a therapist or team of therapists comes straight to the family's dwelling and conducts therapy sessions there.
Fundamental TERMS
Blended family unit —A family formed by the remarriage of a divorced or widowed parent. It includes the new married man and wife, plus some or all of their children from previous marriages.
Differentiation —The ability to retain one's identity within a family system while maintaining emotional connections with the other members.
Extended family field —A person'southward family of origin plus grandparents, in-laws, and other relatives.
Family systems theory —An approach to treatment that emphasizes the interdependency of family members rather than focusing on individuals in isolation from the family. This theory underlies the most influential forms of gimmicky family therapy.
Genogram —A family tree diagram that represents the names, birth order, sex, and relationships of the members of a family. Therapists employ genograms to detect recurrent patterns in the family history and to assist the family members understand their problem(due south).
Homeostasis —The balanced internal environment of the body and the automated trend of the trunk to maintain this internal "steady country." As well refers to the tendency of a family system to maintain internal stability and to resist change.
Identified patient (IP) —The family fellow member in whom the family unit's symptom has emerged or is most obvious.
Nuclear family —The bones family unit, consisting of a father, a mother, and their biological children.
Stepfamily —A family formed by the marriage or long-term cohabitation of two individuals, where ane or both have at to the lowest degree i child from a previous relationship living part-time or total-fourth dimension in the household. The individual who is not the biological parent of the kid or children is referred to equally the stepparent.
Triangling —A process in which two family members lower the tension level between them past drawing in a third member.
Resources
BOOKS
Barnes, Gill Gorell. Family unit Therapy in Changing Times. Gordonville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Carlson, Jon, et al. Family Therapy Techniques: Integrating and Tailoring Handling. Florence, KY: Brunner-Routledge, 2005.
Landau, Elaine. Family unit Therapy. Danbury, CT: Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004.
Sells, Scott P. Treating the Tough Adolescent: A Family-Based, Step-by-Stride Guide. New York: Guilford Publications, 2004.
PERIODICALS
Cortes, Linda. "Habitation-Based Family Therapy: A Misunderstanding of the Role and a New Challenge for Therapists." The Family Periodical: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families 12 (April 2004): 184–88.
Heater, Mary Lou. "Ethnocultural Considerations in Family unit Therapy." Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association nine (April 2003): 46–54.
Hutton, Deborah. "Filial Therapy: Shifting the Balance." Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry ix (April 2004): 261–70.
Sheidow, Ashli J., and Mark S. Woodford. "Multisystemic Therapy: An Empirically Supported, Habitation-Based Family Therapy Approach." The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families 11 (July 2003): 257–63.
ORGANIZATIONS
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. 112 South Alfred St., Alexandria, VA 22314–3061. Web site: http://www.aamft.org/index_nm.asp.
International Family unit Therapy Association. Spider web site: http://www.ifta-familytherapy.org/most.htm.
Stepfamily Association of America. Web site: http://www.saafamilies.org.
Stepfamily Foundation. Web site: http://world wide web.stepfamily.org.
Jennifer E. Sisk, Chiliad.A.
Other articles you might like:
Source: http://www.healthofchildren.com/E-F/Family-Therapy.html
0 Response to "Support for the Alienated Parent.ã¢â‚¬â American Journal of Family Therapy"
Post a Comment