Structural and Strategic Family Therapy
Assignment 1: Structural Versus Strategic Family Therapies
Although structural therapy and strategic therapy are both used in family therapy, these therapeutic approaches have many differences in theory and application. As you assess families and develop treatment plans, you must consider these differences and their potential impact on clients. For this Assignment, as you compare structural and strategic family therapy, consider which therapeutic approach you might use with your own client families.Structural and Strategic Family Therapy
Learning Objectives
Students will:
• Compare structural family therapy to strategic family therapy
• Create structural family maps
• Justify recommendations for family therapy
To prepare:
• Review this week’s Learning Resources and reflect on the insights they provide on structural and strategic family therapies.
• Refer to Gerlach (2015) in this week’s Learning Resources for guidance on creating a structural family map.
Major Points of Structural Family Therapy and Strategic Family Therapy
Structural family therapy was developed by a psychologist named Salvador Minuchin. Based on this form of therapy, he outlined that, dysfunctions in families not only lie in an individual but the entire family unit. Therefore, this therapeutic model purposes to understand some of the rules that silently exist in families and potentially lead to dysfunctional patterns (Colapinto, 2015). It does so through foundations from systemic models and relationships which exist within members of a family. It should also be noted that structural family therapy is gradual in nature and is integrated with interventions that disclose major causes through self-analysis and meditation to influence change (Colapinto & Lee, 2017).
On the other hand, Milton Erickson discovered strategic family therapy whose aim is to influence change within the shortest time possible. It maximizes on comprehensive psychological reviews of some of the issues faced by people in a family at a personal level. When compared to structural family therapy, strategic family therapy is more practical and caring as it considered both the external and internal environment of a therapy setting (Horigian, Anderson, & Szapocznik, 2016). Its intricacy influences congruency in a family setup through the provision of alternatives that maximize personal strengths and promotes change in difficult situations. This means that strategic family therapy requires collaboration amongst members of a family. Structural and Strategic Family Therapy