How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 271

Tracing past behavioral interactions for the express purpose of noting problem interaction sequences; however,
problem tracking is not necessarily an end in itself. This strategy is often called into service when clients have
difficulty responding openly to basic questions or when they struggle to piece together the results of prior
interviewing sequences. Backtracking to past interactive behaviors relative to problem-maintaining patterns can
offer notable results. It can often serve as a basis for returning to a present or future context for creating
solutions.
Examples of Problem-Tracking Questions
“If you were to show me a videotape of how things look when your brother comes home drunk, who confronts
him first [asking a sibling of the identified client], your mother or your father?”; “After your mother confronts
him, what does your brother do?”; “How does your brother respond?”; “Then what happens?”; “What happens
after that?”
Ideally the brief therapist will secure a detailed picture from the family members regarding the specific family
patterns that have maintained the presenting problem. (Selekman, 1993, pp. 76–77)
In the next example, a consultant was asked for a one-time consultation in an ongoing treatment with a family
that suffered from an unyielding problem concerning the children’s “unmanageable, disruptive behavior.” The
heart of the consultation interview consisted of about 10 questions, which have been condensed into the
following outline.
Example of a Problem-Tracking Sequence
Therapist: The children are both equally disruptive, or is one more disruptive than the other?
Client: Both equally.
T: Disruptive outside the house mostly, or inside, or both?
C: Only in the house.
T: I see. At any particular time or circumstance?
C: During dinner.
T: So, what happens?
C: Well . . . [Goes on to explain details of escalating disruption.]
T: And then who tries to stop this?
C: Mother.
T: What does she do?
C: [Goes on to explain mother’s failing attempts at control.]
T: And while this is going on between mom and the kids, what is father doing?
C: At first father doesn’t do anything, but then when it gets loud enough he yells from the bedroom and then
things settle down.
T: Excuse me, father is not at table?
C: No, father is bedridden.
T: Why is that?
C: He has cancer.
T: I see. For how long has he been bedridden?
C: Two months.
T: For how long has this disruption been a problem?
C: Two months. (Real, 1990, p. 265)

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