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Bowen Family Systems Therapy
I have learned many facts related to the history of family therapy and the main psychological principles that it is based on and that makes it effective. In the book “The Essentials of Family Therapy” by Michael Nichols, the methods of Murry Bowen are thoroughly described in detail. Currently, my placement is March of Dimes Canada, where I can apply this information. I am sure that it will help me understand the relationships in my patients’ families in order to make a successful intervention when it is necessary.
The main purpose of Bowen’s principles is to make people focus on their family relationships using clear thinking rather than emotions, thereby minimizing the level of anxiety. He distinguishes two main methods that help achieve successful results in the therapy, namely, detriangulation and differentiation. The first one concerns itself with the necessity for a therapist to not take sides during therapy. The second one focuses on the importance of teaching parents how to deal with their anxiety so that it is not transmitted to other family members.
From my personal experience, I can say that I witnessed a situation where Bowen’s theory was successfully implemented in practice. A friend of mine is a therapist. Once, he was working with a couple who had quarreled all the time and had many problems in their relationships. Being present at one of his sessions, I saw that he was several times provoked by one of the parties to choose a side, but he managed to avoid making any choices adroitly. In addition, he spoke about differentiation and the ability to control the anxiety so that it would not spread to their children. Eventually, he managed to reconcile them, and they were grateful to him.
Not-Knowing Approach to Family Therapy
This lecture has given me an understanding of the so-called not-knowing approach to therapy, which focuses on a constructive dialog between a therapist and a mentally ill patient. In the chapter about narrative therapy of the book “The Essentials of Family Therapy” by Michael Nichols, the principles of the not-knowing approach are applied to family therapy. I am positive that this information will be useful in my current placement in a way that I will place a much larger focus on patients’ past experiences while having conversations with them.
Not-knowing therapy was designed particularly for patients with mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder; nowadays, it has a much broader application and can be used to help constantly arguing family members establish good communication with each other. In general, this therapy is based on the idea that oppressive stories about a person’s life always aggravate their condition. Therefore, therapists try to focus the patients’ attention on their positive experiences by asking certain questions that abstract patients from their problems.
In my personal experience, I once visited a psychiatric department in a general clinic, and I saw doctors using this therapy there. In a session, a therapist asked a person with schizophrenia questions that focused his attention on the details of his life when everything was normal for him. To my surprise, the patient really became less aggressive and insane for the moment of telling his story. Before that moment, I had been skeptical about this therapy, but that case changed my mind. I think that if this therapy is effective with mentally ill people, it can definitely help sane people handle their family issues. Certainly, this approach is less effective without medications, but it is much better than those that had been used before.
Strategic Family Therapy
Strategic family therapy has three main approaches that use slightly different methods of addressing family problems, namely, Mental Research Institute’s (MRI) Brief Therapy, Haley and Madane’s Strategic Therapy, and Milan Systemic Model. In his book “The Essentials of Family Therapy,” Michael Nichols provides a comprehensive description of all the three approaches, the differences between them, and their effectiveness. I think that knowing the principles of strategic family therapy is very important in my current place of work, as effective communication of patients with their family members is crucial in the overall process of their recovery.
In general, this therapy is based on the idea of the importance of communication between people claiming that silence and implied rules and commands create the overwhelming majority of all family problems. Thus, in sessions, a therapist focuses people’s attention on revealing the implied and understated rules within their families. In doing so, they try to make conversations between family members as open and transparent as possible so that they can quickly decide their problems rather than keeping them inside and making quarrels.
From my personal experience, I can say that I saw the effectiveness of this kind of family therapy. Four years ago, my friends, a husband, and a wife began to have major troubles in their family after living together for three years. They made quarrels out of nowhere and often told that they hated each other. After observing their relationships for several months, I advised them to go to a therapist who was a friend of mine. As a result, in two months, their relationships significantly improved. When I asked my friend how he managed to reconcile them, he said the problem in their family was poor communication between them and that he simply fixed it.
Structural Family Therapy
In general, the structural family therapy is based on the assumption that every family has a certain hierarchical structure and provides techniques for making changes in a family. In his book “The Essentials of Family Therapy,” Michael Nichols explains the structural approach in family therapy and describes the peculiarities of its utilization in order to reach the maximal effect. In my opinion, the methods of structural family therapy are important in my current place of work, as, sometimes, the problem is not in patients or some of their relatives but in the whole family system. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of this kind of problem and be ready to deal with them and help patients.
When using this approach, a therapist focuses not on each family member as an individual but on the family as a whole. In doing so, they usually occupy a position of leadership in a family, make observations in order to understand the structure of the family, and carry out the intervention in order to change this structure.
In my personal experience, I observed the usage of this approach several times at my friend’s sessions. He uses this technique very often. A vivid example was a family with three children who had problems communicating with them. They pandered to their children too much, thereby making them even more intolerable. Thus, my friend asked about the opinion of each parent regarding the situation. Then he said that their methods were wrong and that children’s effrontery had no bounds; therefore, it was crucial to set the boundaries within the family which cannot be crossed. Certainly, it caused indignation in the children, but he provided the couple with the methods to alleviate the effects of this change.
Solution-Focused Therapy
I have learned the basics and the peculiarities of solution-focused therapy. In general, this therapy is based on the assumption that all people are constrained by their problems and concerns. In the book “The Essentials of Family Therapy” by Michael Nichols, details of this approach are described in detail and supported by a variety of vivid examples. In my current placement, this therapy is particularly important, as sick people have more problems than constantly bother them and do not allow them to focus on the positive aspects of their predicament, and I can utilize these techniques to assist patients in doing that.
According to this approach, therapists should try to focus a patient’s attention not on what cannot be changed but on what they can change using their strengths. Thus, the main objective of therapists is to demonstrate to patients their strengths and encourage them to use them to solve their issues. Additionally, they should assure patients that it is imperative to focus on smaller changes, as they will eventually lead to the larger ones and improve the overall situation.
In my personal experience, there was a situation when one of my classmates was frustrated because she had not managed to get the job that she wanted. She was an unconfident person and had some health problems that diminished her self-esteem even more. Once I was present during the conversation between her, my other classmate, and my friend. Interestingly, when they tried to console her, they used the methods peculiar to this therapy without even knowing that. They attempted to highlight her most vivid strengths and focus her attention only on the solution of the problem and what she could do to achieve it. Although eventually, she decided to take another job, I noticed that she definitely became more confident.
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