How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 152

The Counsellor’s Role
The counsellor's role in this model is of a facilitator who gives total commitment and attention to the
process and the interactions. The counsellor intervenes to assist leveling and taking responsibility for one's
own actions and feelings.
Play therapy with families has the advantage of helping children communicate their story to the therapist.
Dynamic family play therapy engages family members in creative activity by using natural play.
The counsellor’s goal is to help the family develop and increase spontaneity.

Key Concepts
1.

The individual is considered as part of a family and the interactions and relationships within the
family are the focus of therapy.

2.

The systems approach to family therapy is focused on how family members can maintain a healthy
balance between being enmeshed and being disengaged.

3.

Structural family therapy is based on the idea that the family is an evolving, hierarchical
organization made up of several subsystems with rules and behaviour patterns for interacting across
and within those subsystems.

4.

According to structural theorists, defining and clarifying boundaries that exist between subsystems
is imperative.

5.

Minuchin's approach is directed toward changing the family structure or organization as a way of
modifying family members' behaviour.

6.

Strategic family therapy is based on the assumption that the family's ineffective problem solving
develops and maintains symptoms.

7.

Conjoint family therapy is based on honest communication, members’ feelings of self-worth, and
the rules of the family.

8.

Some of the family play therapy approaches include dynamic family play therapy, filial therapy,
strategic family play therapy and thera-play.

152