How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 64

Mimesis also refers to using a family's own ways of speaking to join with the family. Each family and each
family member has its, his, or her own vocabulary and perspective. For instance, if a family member is a
carpenter, it might be useful to use the language of carpentry. The therapist might say, "Dealing with your
son requires lots of different tools, just like jobs at work do. Sometimes you need to use a hammer and use a
lot of force, and sometimes you need to use a soft cloth for a more gentle job." If a family member is an
accountant, it may be helpful to speak in terms of assets and liabilities. If a person is religious, it may be
helpful to speak of God's will.
Whatever language a family uses should be the language the counselor uses to converse with that family.
The counselor should not talk to a family using vocabulary that is found in this manual--words such as
"interactions," "restructuring," and "systems." Instead, the BSFT counselor should use the "pots and pans"
language that each of the family members uses in his or her everyday life. For example, if families are
uncomfortable with the term "counseling," the term "meetings" might be used.
Much of the work the counselor does to establish the therapeutic relationship involves learning how the
family interacts to better blend with the family. However, the counselor cannot learn the ways in which the
family interacts unless he or she sees family members interacting as they would when the counselor is not
present. Getting family members to interact can be difficult because families often come into counseling
thinking that their job is to tell the counselor what happened. Therefore, it is essential that counselors
decentralize themselves by discouraging communications that are directed at them, and instead encouraging
family members to interact so that they can be observed behaving in their usual way.
Building a Treatment Plan
BSFT diagnoses are made to identify adaptive and maladaptive patterns of family interaction so tha t the
counselor can plan practical, strategically efficient interventions. The purpose of the intervention is to
improve the family interactions most closely linked to the adolescent's symptoms. This, in turn, will help the
family to manage those symptoms.
Enactment: Identifying Maladaptive Interactions
In BSFT, the counselor assesses and diagnoses the family's interactions by allowing the family to interact in
the counseling session as it normally does at home. To begin, the counselor asks the family to discuss
something. When a family member speaks to the counselor about another family member who is present,
the counselor asks the family member who is speaking to repeat what was said directly to the family
member about whom it was said. Family interactions that occur as they would at home and that show the
family's typical interactional patterns are called "enactments." An enactment can either occur spontaneously,
or the counselor can initiate it by asking family members to discuss something among themselves. Creating
enactments of family interactions is like placing the counselor on the viewing side of a oneway mirror and
letting the family "do its thing" while the counselor observes.
Different therapy models have different explanations for why a family or adolescent is having difficulty,
and so they have different targets of intervention. BSFT targets interactional patterns. Because BSFT is a
problem-focused therapy approach, it targets those interactional patterns that are most directly related to the
symptom for which the family is seeking treatment. Targeting patterns most directly related to the symptom
allows BSFT to be brief and strengthens a therapist's relationship with a family by demonstrating that the
therapist will help the family solve the problems family members have identified.
Families that develop symptoms tend to be organized or to function around those symptoms. That's because
a symptom works like a magnet, organizing the family around it. This is especially true if the symptom is a
serious, life-threatening one, such as drug abuse. Therefore, it is most efficient to work with the family by
focusing on the symptom around which the family has already organized itself.
Family Crises as Enactments
Enactments are used to observe family interactions in the present and to identify family interactional
problems. Family crises are particularly opportune types of enactments because they are highly charged, and
family members are emotionally available to try new behaviors. Therefore, families in crisis should be seen
immediately. In addition to gaining valuable information about problematic family interactions, the

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