How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 66

Seven Frequently Used Restructuring Techniques
The rest of this chapter describes seven frequently used restructuring techniques (i.e., to change families'
patterns of interaction). These techniques will give a counselor the basic tools needed to help a family
change its patterns of interaction. The seven restructuring techniques are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Working in the present
Reframing negativity
Reversals
Working with boundaries and alliances
Detriangulation
Opening up closed systems
Tasks
Working in the Present

Although some types of counseling focus on the past (Bergin and Garfield 1994), BSFT focuses strictly on
the present. In BSFT, families do not simply talk about their problems, because talking about problems
usually involves telling a story about the past. Working in the present with family interactional processes
that are maintaining the family's symptoms is necessary to bring about change in BSFT. Consequently, the
BSFT counselor wants the family to engage in interactions within the therapy session--in the same way that
it would at home. When this happens and family members enact the way in which they interact routinely,
the counselor can respond to help the family members reshape their behavior. Several techniques that
require working in the present with family processes are found in subsequent sections within this chapter.
1. Working in the present
Does BSFT Ever Work in the Past?
Counselors work with the past less than 5 percent of the counseling time. One important example of
working in the past can be illustrated by an early counseling session in which the parent and adolescent are
in adversarial roles. The parent may be angry or deeply hurt by the youth's behavior. One strategy to
overcome this impasse in which neither family member is willing to bend is to ask the parent, "Can you
remember when Felix was born? How did you feel?" The parent may say nostalgically: "He was such a
beautiful child. The minute I saw him, I was enchanted. I loved him so much I thought my heart would
burst."
This kind of intervention is called "reconnection" (cf. Liddle 1994, 1995, 2000). When the parent is
hardened by the very difficult experiences he or she has had with a troublesome adolescent, counselors
sometimes use the strategy of reconnection to overcome the impasse in which neither the parent nor the
youth is willing to bend first. Reconnection is an intervention that helps the parent recall the positive feeling
(love) that he or she once had for the child. After the parent expresses his or her early love for the child, the
counselor turns to the youth and says: "Did you know your mother loves you so very much? Look at the
expression of bliss on her face."
As can be seen, the counseling session digressed into the past for a very short time to reconnect the parent.
This was necessary to change the here-and-now interaction between two family members. The reconnection
allowed the counselor to transform an interaction characterized by resentment into an interaction
characterized by affection. Because the feelings of affection and bonding do not last long, the counselor
must move quickly to use reconnection as a bridge that moves the counseling to a more positive
interactional terrain.
2. Reframing: Systemic Cognitive Restructuring
To "reframe," a counselor creates a different perspective or "frame" of reality than the one within which the
family has been operating. He or she presents this new frame to the family in a convincing manner --that is,
"selling" it to the family and then using this new frame to facilitate change. The purpose of systemsoriented, cognitive restructuring (reframing) is to change perceptions and/or meaning in ways that will
enable family members to change their interactions. Most of the time, in families of adolescent drug
abusers, negativity needs to be reframed. Negativity is usually exhibited as blaming, pejorative, and
invalidating statements ("You are no good." "I can't trust you."), and, in general, "angry fighting."

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