How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 143
Three reasons that make clients move:
They are challenged in their perception of their reality, given alternative possibilities that make sense, or
self-reinforcing new relationships appear once they've tried out new alternatives. People need some support
within a family to move into the unknown.
Conditions for behaviour change
Much like the formation of a new family, the joining of a therapist into the family system involves
accommodating to the current family members.
Accommodation allows for restructuring to occur, with a minimized risk of rejection by the family.
The opposite is a possible danger as well, with a therapist becoming too close of a family member, with his
changes being assimilated into current maladaptive patterns with no change.
Family members must be assured of the acceptance and respect of their lifestyle by the therapist, in order for
him to successfully join the family system.
A therapist listens to a family’s views of their situation and reframes them in the context of a family’s
structure
Enactments: prompting a family to demonstrate how a particular problem is handled
The family is then directed to continue the enactment or a therapist comments on what went wrong within
the enactment.
Spontaneous behaviour sequences: “like focusing a spotlight on action that occurs without direction”
If acted on early enough, allows for considerable progress through possible therapeutic distractions.
Four sources of family stress:
One member with extra familial forces, whole family with extra familial forces, transition points in the
family's evolution, idiosyncratic problems.
Sets:
Repeated family reactions to stress. Spontaneous sets: interpreted like enactments.
Goals:
clear boundaries as gatekeepers,
clear lines of authority,
systems and subsystems (the parental one is where pathology begins),
increase flexibility to alternative transactions,
help negotiate family life cycle transitions.
Family mapping via diagram of current structure.
“Structural family therapists believe that problems are maintained by a dysfunctional family organization.”
Therapy is therefore directed toward changing the structure to alleviate problems, and activating long
inactive structures already present in a family. Critics wrongfully see this viewpoint as portraying a
“pathological core” in the family, an inherent flaw.
In effect, a structural therapist becomes a part of the system to help its members change it from within.
Boundaries and subsystems are shifted, so the family will have the capacity to solve their own problems.
Enmeshed families will strengthen the boundaries around them while disengaged families will aim to loosen
them.
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