Introduction
One of the main benefits of family therapy is enhancing how the family unit operates. In addition, it benefits individual family members in different ways. These may help treat various forms of mental health problems. The therapies will offer one a fundamental understanding of how to perceive the larger social image of one’s personal life. The paper applies one case family to two family therapy models and discusses sociocultural matters and anti-racism as they relate to the case family.
Case Background
The family case involves Dallas, a 30-year-old African-American male who has requested family therapy to reestablish his affiliation with his family. Dallas is the second-oldest of the four brothers (Christopher, 33, Taj, 23, and Kelvin, 16). Dallas was sent to reside with his father because of several behavioral issues when he was 12 years old. He struggled to change his life as a child; even though, as an adult, he has been able to maintain a stable job and a good relationship. Dallas wants to rebuild his rapport with his family and eliminate the animosity he holds, particularly towards his mother (52) and his oldest brother, as he is a new father and needs to become a better person for his daughter.
Haley’s Strategic Family Therapy (SFT)
The SFT targets families in which the youth is involved in problematic conduct, such as associating with disruptive peers. Hence, SFT’s goal is to modify the patterns of family relations that encourage or allow problematic behavior to persist. The SFT, by working with families, reduces youth issues and strengthens better-functioning families (Jones et al., 2023). Since changes in family interaction patterns occur, modifications in family functioning are more likely to occur after treatment has been completed, as multiple family members have reformed the way they interact with one another.
In assessing the case of the Dallas family, the observation shows that, before venturing into treatment. The family had a troubled youth and is always blaming and hopeless in their perspective of the issue, and in the relationships of family members with each other. Dallas has a cold correlation with his elder brother and mother. He does not get along well with his family members after living separately from age 12 until starting a family, and now has a daughter. Dallas has been directed to have psychotherapy sessions for the enmity he has towards his elder brother and Kim.
In the case study, Dallas knows that his family’s behavior is confrontational whenever he meets his mother or oldest brother. However, he has not proposed any measures to encourage them to stay home more to address the problem (Jones et al., 2023). He understands that her daughter suffers from not being able to meet her uncle and grandmother, but he continues to harbor his animosity towards them.
Furthermore, Haley believed that people do not create issues in isolation; however, in response to their social settings, families can be effective storms that foster dysfunction. Moreover, negative feedback loops support constancy and could be applied by Dallas’ family members when he challenges the principles the family lives by, thereby maintaining the status quo. On the contrary, positive feedback loops support change, and if the family responds in this way, it encourages moving away from tradition.
The SFT presumes that the family’s systems are due to ineffective attempts to transform an existing dysfunctional and difficult family that lacks the flexibility to address change or adjust solutions that do not function the first time as they attempt to resolve the matter (Hardy et al., 2020). In this case, the family has a chance to foster peaceful coexistence among Dallas, his mother, and his elder brother.
Treatment Process
In a safe treatment environment, a therapist designs interventions with the family to replicate family conversations and interactions, addressing issues specific to the family’s structure and fostering behavioral change. A psychotherapist will have to study how the Dallas family behaves and attempt to transform it through second-order transformation. It entails establishing new solutions to the animosity between Dallas and his mother and brother, so that a new solution becomes homeostasis for them and emerges premarket (Carr, 2019).
For instance, if the son is showing hatred towards his brother or mother, and the solution is to have a conversation and find the root cause of it, the therapist may try to highlight and then devise a new solution that can alter the hateful behavior and keep it. A strategic family psychotherapist hopes for Dallas’ family to undergo a third-order transformation, in which they change the way they perceive the world, allowing them to see more potential in how to negotiate and understand their relationships (Lebow, 2019). Further, this model assumes that reform will occur swiftly and that the solution will fulfill the needs of all the family members.
Theory-Centered Goals
Reasons Behind Negative Behavior and the Problems to Resolve
The therapist has to inquire about the nature of this problem. Why does Dallas have a difficult time communicating with his elder brother and mother? These will guide the therapist to have a well-defined solution to the problems affecting the family. The therapist has to restructure, and punctuation could be applied to each family member. Guidelines would be offered to address the identified issue of the Dallas family. It would outline this more in the process of resolving their antisocial behavior.
Positive Transformation in Behavior and Conversation
The brothers and mother would apply the pretense of regrouping behavior to their family. Redefining would be applied to Dallas’s hostility toward his brother and mother. This would help a family build a framework of principles and consequences for children. In addition, interventions may focus on enhancing communication and interactions among family members. The ordeals would be applied to each family member, and directives would be issued to each to halt an unsuitable series of behaviors or acts.
Maintaining Excellent Problem-Solving
A therapist has to stick to the best approaches to solve the issue, which involves ensuring that the rules and principles governing it are well followed. The goal of the SFT is to address issues, achieve the family’s objectives, and change Dallas’s problematic behaviors. The therapist employs the joining intervention strategy by establishing alliances among all the members of Dallas’ family until success is achieved in gaining respect and acceptance. In the case study, the psychotherapist employs the theory to influence the family’s cultural norms, specifically those of the mother and brothers. The therapist intervenes by transforming the cultural and family traditions that leave the mother less engaged with the son.
Minuchin’s Structural Family Therapy
Minuchin aims to support a restructuring of a family system in line with healthier perspectives, which he does by entering the family’s different subunits. The model shifts from the linear view, in which problems are situated in the patient, to the interactional view, in which issues are perceived as involving other family members. The approach relies on family mapping to understand and uncover patterns in family interactions and behavior (Finney & Tadros, 2019). The aim is to enhance interactions and communication among family members and to outline boundaries to establish a better family structure.
Furthermore, Minuchin’s SFT model shows that alterations in family structure lead to changes in conduct and the inner psychic systems of the members of the Dallas family. In this case study, there is a need to disrupt the status quo within the family’s system to induce change. It will entail supporting Dallas more than the others in the system. The case study assessment is conducted through the therapist’s understanding of the family’s existing structure. Dallas’s behavior while at home with his mother and elder brother is the main reason the therapist requested their family to have a counseling session (Finney & Tadros, 2019). For a while, his mother and elder brother reported that he had been showing animosity towards them.
The scrutiny by a psychotherapist into Dallas’ family structure showed that when the parents were separated, he went and stayed with his father at the age of 12 years, having a sizeable amount of influence over the family. Moreover, he had been trying to adapt to the many changes that his family had encountered. The therapist noted that his family had been incredibly organized and flexible, adapting to the modifications following the separation. However, because of several instances that the father dealt with, Dallas felt it was better to refer the matter to an external family psychotherapist to try to address his unwelcoming behavior towards his family members.
In the preliminary evaluation, the psychotherapist observed that Dallas’s influence to control her mother and brother was shown by his actions and lack of respect towards them. For example, when asked to do some activity, Dallas obeyed with hesitation. The therapist noted that their mother insisted that their children maintain high discipline standards and obey their oldest brother. Dallas did not pay any attention to respecting his mother or elder brother. He typically showed disrespect and hatred toward them when he tried to speak to them, which prompted retaliation.
Intervention
The model addresses issues of family functionality, and the goal is achieved by seeking access to the kinship system to identify the principles that govern family functioning. For instance, in the case study context, the main principle governing family members’ behavior is strict obedience to their mother and oldest brother. Based on the SFT model, the psychoanalyst has to map correlations between subsets of the family or its members, and eventually dislocate dysfunctional rapport within the family, leading to its stabilization into better patterns. One of the main elements of the SFT is that a therapist enters the family in a catalyst role, acting to stimulate positive reforms (Chappelle & Tadros, 2020). He is incorporated into the family limits, so that any implemented reforms may influence all individuals who make up the family.
Additionally, the theory considers relations as structures arranged into subsystems with stringent or flexible limits. These boundaries may discourage or allow contact between various family members. A therapist will need to use an enactment mechanism, encouraging family members to engage directly with one another during sessions, allowing them to observe and adjust their relationships (Gregory et al., 2019). Thus, every influence of a person on the behavior of this family is devoted to other members of the family.
The Role of the Counselor in Minuchin’s SFT Model
The main aim of the therapist is to herald repeated series. The goal is achieved via disruptions of family hierarchical structures. The system entails power changing via the modification of interaction styles. In this case study of the SFT, a counselor plays the role of altering dysfunctional structures of the family by promoting the growth of different people to induce positive change in the entire family as a means of establishing new means of interaction. Through the SFT, counselors play a critical function in facilitating system rebuilding.
Besides, a therapist acts as a director and choreographer of the needed change (Gregory et al., 2019). For instance, in Dallas’ case, a therapist has the function of creating the cognition that respect should be given to their mother and eldest son. The therapist should illustrate to Dallas that showing animosity towards his eldest brother and mother is an undesirable norm. Therefore, he may discover that he is wrong when he disrespects his brother and mother, and that such behavior has harmful effects on both.
Sociocultural Attunement
The sociocultural contexts comprising the political, social, and economic characteristics in which families live have robust effects on family dynamics and functioning, as well as on how families raise their children. Differences in marital and gender practices overwhelmed the social heritage of slavery as the system of economic deprivation and racism continued to impose on African Americans’ family life. The families experience many facets of race-associated sociocultural issues, such as educational disparities, economic disparities, mental health practices and results, interracial group correlation, families, youth, health and criminal justice, and the elderly (Yearby et al., 2022).
Additionally, family members of African Americans are described as having two frameworks: one in which the father is seen as the patriarch and the only breadwinner, and another in which the mother assumes the matriarchal role in a fragmented home. African Americans experience racial disparity, in which there is always an unequal distribution of power, resources, and economic opportunities across the races in the community. Racial inequality manifests in education, wealth, housing, employment, incarceration rates, health, and mobility.
Therefore, black Americans support substantial reforms to many institutions to guarantee fair treatment (Banaji et al., 2021. There was resistance to racial discrimination and segregation centered on approaches like non-violent resistance, civil disobedience, protests, marches, racist awareness, and boycotts. Organizations have emerged to enhance African Americans’ political influence to end growing structural racism (Yearby et al., 2022). It aims to put an end to race-centered segregation and discrimination by being an advocate and member.
Conclusion
In applying the one-case family to the two family therapy models, there is a need to resolve the issue affecting them. To recover, Haley’s SFT can be applied to reconcile with his family and maintain cordial relations with his kinfolk by using a joining intervention approach. Further, Minuchin’s SFT model was well used in the case study, with positive results in supporting associations among family members through heralding repetitive sequences. Therefore, Dallas’ family managed to resolve the problems arising from the second son’s hostility towards his mother and his oldest son.
References
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