The document discusses three major approaches to family therapy: structural family therapy developed by Salvador Minuchin which focuses on changing family structures and boundaries, strategic family therapy developed by Jay Haley which uses problem-focused directives to create behavioral change, and social constructionism therapy which emphasizes empowering family members through questioning and helping them develop alternative narratives and meanings of problems.

1. Reported by:
Ma. Jessica L. Diezmo
Family Systems Therapy

2. Structural Therapy
• Salvador Minuchin
• Goal: Develop clear boundaries for individual
members and changing the family’s structural
pattern by creating effective hierarchical structure
- Parents are in charge of their children and give them
increasing independence and freedom as they
mature.
• Major concepts
– Family Structure
– Family Subsystems
– Boundaries

3. • Family Structure
– an organized pattern in which families interact.
– useful to pay attention to who says what to whom and in what
way with what result.
– Can only be seen when a family is in action, because verbal
descriptions rarely convey the true structure.
• Family Subsystems
are subgroupings within the family based on age (or
generation), gender and interest (or function)
– Parental (mother and father)
– Spousal (wife and husband)
– Sibling (children)
– Extended (Grandparents & other relatives)

4. • Boundaries
- are invisible barriers that regulate contact
between members
o Diffuse or “enmeshed” (overly involved in each
other’s lives)
o Rigid or “disengaged” (too much detachment
from each other)
- are reciprocal
means that a weak boundary (enmeshment) in one
relationship usually means that the same person is
disengaged from someone else.

5. • Techniques
– Joining the family
The therapist joins with the family, taking on their
affective tone, tempo, language and structure.
– Family mapping
The therapist employs a method of mapping the
structure of a family. He identifies boundaries as
rigid, diffuse or clear; transactional styles are
identified as enmeshed or disengaged.
– Enactments
Asking the family to act out a situation rather than
describe it verbally.
• Role and function of the therapist
Stage directors; friendly uncle; promoter of change
in the family structure

6. STRATEGIC THERAPY
• Jay Haley – worked with Minuchin from 1967-76.
Began Family Therapy Institute in Washington,
D.C. in 1976.
• Goal: to create change in destructive behavior and
communication patterns among family members.
The identified problem is the focus of therapy.
• Developed a brief, problem-focused approach.
Contends that "change occurs not through insight
and understanding but through the process of the
family carrying out directives issued by the
therapist." (Becvar & Becvar, Family Therapy,
193)

7. Haley (1976) describes stages of a
typical interview:
1. Social Stage: build rapport and
assess
2. Problem Stage: get clear statement
of concern
3. Interaction Stage; family interacts
4. Goal Setting: define therapy goal in
concise, observable, behavioral terms

8. • Techniques
– Giving/Using Directives
Creating or selecting an intervention that will impact
the presenting problem.
– Paradoxical intervention
Cutting through a client’s resistance and to bring about
change.
– Reframing
This is use to create a different perception of reality.
Reframing is a process in which a perception is
changed by explaining a situation in terms of a
different context.
• Role and function of the therapist
• Active director of change; problem solver and
authoritarian.
Pakialamera
Concern lang

9. Social Constructionism
Therapy
• Tom Andersen, Michael White and others
• Goal: Concerned with all family members’
views about the problem
• Learning and creating new viewpoints by
giving new meaning of constructions to old
sets of problems.
• Emphasis on gaining new meaning through
narrative reconstructions of stories families
have told about themselves.

10. Social Constructionism
Therapy
KEY CONCEPTS
• Collaboration and Empowerment
Heavy emphasis is placed in the use of question,
often relational in nature that empower the people
in the families to speak, to give voice to their
diverse positions, and to own their capabilities in
the presence of others.
• Storied Lives and Narratives
Human beings “make meaning expressed”
in language and narratives that make
families meaningful systems.

11. • Techniques
– Listening with an open mind
• All constructionist theories place a strong
emphasis on listening to clients without judgment
or blame, affirming and valuing them, and creating
meaning and new possibilities out of the stories
they share.
– Questions that make difference
Questions that therapist ask may seem
embedded in a unique conversation that seek to
empower clients and families in new ways.
– Deconstruction and Externalization
Living life means coping with problems, not being
fused with them. Problems and problem saturated
stories have real impacts on real people and
dominate living in extremely negative ways.

12. – Alternative Stories and Re-authoring
Social constructionists seek to elicit new
possibilities and embed them in life
narratives or stories and processes of the
people they serve. This development is an
enactment of ultimate hope.
• Role and function of the therapist
Listener, questioner; collaborator’ solution
finder