This presentation help students can understand rheir lesson about Family System Strategic Approach

1. FAMILY SYSTEM
STRATEGIC/SYSTEMIC APPROACH
By: Jay Haley &
Cloe Madanes

2. Jay Haley
(1923-2007)
• MA Communication
• The Director at the
Mental Research
Institute in Palo, Alto,
California in1959.
• In 1967, joined the staff
at the Philadelphia Child
Guidance Clinic.
Cloe Madanes
(b. 1945)
• Studied Psychology in Buenos Aires,
and she was licensed there in 1965
• Associated with the Mental Research
Institute in Palo Alto, California.
• Second wife of Jay Haley
 They both founded the Family
Therapy Institute in Washington, DC in
1976.
 Study and teach Strategic Family
Therapy.

3. Strategic Family
Therapy
 The model is a foundation of Brief
Therapy to promote symptoms
relief.
 Rooted in the work of Milton
Erickson, Gregory Bateson and
Salvador Minuchin.
 Haley viewed communication as
a source of power.
 He taught that in a family
hierarchy, a parents should have
more power than children.
Main Concepts of Strategic
Model
1. Circular causality
2. First order and Second order
change
3. Family rules
4. Positive Feedback loop
5. Hierarchical Structure
VIEW OF THE PROBLEM
Symptoms: A strategy adopted to
control a relationship when all other
strategies have failed.

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Unique aspect:
 It is a theory of optimism and
hope rather than explaining
problems as pathological and
terminal.
 It is a therapy of change rather
than insight, promoting
solutions and new behaviors
over understanding and excuses
about why problems should
exist.
 Strategic therapy is dedicated to
the premise that therapists
should practice in an active,
directive, and skillful fashion.
 Flexibility is a key element of the
therapy, and different
approaches are needed for the
variety of presenting problems
and cultural, ethnic, and social
contexts brought to therapy.
Historical Roots
• Erickson & Bateson’s work
- Problem centered
- Focus on behavior change;
Erickson’s “prescribing ordeals”
• Communications Therapy
- Rules governed
- Feedback loop systems ( strategic
Therapist made this central)
• MRI model
- Identify positive feedback loops
that maintain problems.
- Determine roles that support those
interactions.
- Find a way to change the rules to
interrupt problems behavior (Haley
added hierarchical perspectives &
ordeals)

5. ROLE OF COUSELOR
“ Therapy can be called strategic if the
clinician initiates what happens during
therapy and designs a particular approach
for each problem”. (Haley.1973, p 7).
 The counselor plans a strategy
that sets clear goals, which lead to
solving the presenting problems.
(relieve symptoms).
 Share a belief in being active and
flexible with their family clients.
 Emphasize short-term treatment,
about 10 sessions.
 The counselor/therapist
design interventions, which is
appropriate for the client’s
social situation (Madanes,
1981).
 Evaluate the results and
homework.
 Expert, Educator, Observer,
etc.

6. GOALS :
 The priority lies in changing
the behavior reactions by
individuals in response to
their problems.
 Therapy did not necessarily
end with the immediate
problem resolves, but could
end with the change in the
structural factors that caused
the problem.
TECHNIQUES :
With the hope of changing the family's
structure in the long run, Haley and
Madanes’ Therapy begins by:
1. Social stage - build rapport and
assess
2. Problem Stage – get clear
statement of concern
3. Interaction Stage- Family interacts
(therapist observes)
4. Goal Setting Stage – define
therapy goal in concise, observable,
behavioral terms.

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Cont.
TECHNIQUES
• Directives – Task that a
counselor/therapist assigns to
be completed by client outside
the therapy.
• Paradoxical Intervention –
Counterintuitive task that helps
clients see the problem in a
different way; most often
helping them see the control
that they have over undesired
behaviors.
 Ordeals - an unpleasant task the
client must do when a symptoms
occur.
 Restraining – Telling family members
not to change
 Positioning- exaggerating the
symptoms
 Reframing- giving a symptoms a
more positive meaning.

8. ASSESING EFFECTIVENESS
How does the
therapist know that
the strategic approach
is successful?
answer:
• If the presenting problem is
successfully treated/ is not present
anymore.
• structural hierarchical are more
balanced
• Family is functional without
therapist.
References:
• Haley, J. & Rieheport-Haley M. The
Art of Strategic Therapy, 2003.
Brunner- Routledge. New York
• Madanes, C. Strategic Family Therapy.
1981 Jossey-BASS, Inc. San Francisco.
• Nicolas M. The Essentials of Family
Therapy, 2014. Pearson Education. Inc.
Boston.
• Mental Research Institute Website.
Strategic Family Therapy.
http://www.mri.org.strategic_family.th
erapy.html

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THAT’S ALL