In today’s post, Maribí Pereira will talk to us about the approach to family systemic therapy. A concept unknown to many but increasingly used in the professional environment.
What is structural family therapy?
Structural family therapy, which studies man in his social context, was developed in the second half of the 20th century. It is one of the multiple responses to the concept of man as part of his environment.
As early as 1914, Ortega y Gasset wrote: “I am I and my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I do not save myself” and “this sector of surrounding reality forms the other half of my person: only through it can I integrate and be fully myself” (Minuchin, 2009, p. 24).
For his part, Delgado pointed out that “We cannot be free in relation to parents, teachers, and society, since they constitute the extracelebral sources of our minds” (Minuchin, 2009, p. 26).
When the mind is conceived as extracelebral as well as intracelebral, the act of locating pathology within the individual’s mind does not indicate whether it is done inside or outside the person. Pathology can be located within the patient, in their social context, or in the feedback between both (Minuchin, 2009).
What does family systemic therapy consist of?
In this sense, family systemic therapy is a therapeutic approach applied in the treatment of disorders conceptualized as the expression of alterations in the interactions, relational styles, and communication patterns of a social group understood as a human system (retrieved from www.mentesabiertas.org, September 24, 2016). ISEP includes its training in the Master in Third Generation Therapies.
The three axioms of family systemic therapy
According to Minuchin (2009), the three axioms are:
– An individual’s psychic life is not exclusively an internal process.
– Modifications in a family structure contribute to producing changes in the behavior and internal psychic processes of the members of that system
– When a therapist works with a patient or a patient’s family, their behavior is included in that context.
Systemic concepts, as well as their therapeutic methods and techniques, can be applied to couples, work teams, school contexts, families, and also to individuals. What is clearly differentiating is that the emphasis is placed on the dynamics of communication processes, on the interactions between the members of the system and between the subsystems that compose it. Systemic intervention, therefore, proposes the shift from the individual to the system, from the intrapsychic to the interpersonal, thus using interaction as an element of work and communication. For all this, it does not address “why” an individual acts in a certain way but “how” they do it (retrieved from www.mentesabiertas.org, September 24, 2016).
Therefore, the family psychotherapist does not base their conceptions on an “essential” personality that would remain unmodified through the vicissitudes of different contexts and circumstances. They consider the “patient” as a member of different social contexts, acting and responding within their framework. Their conception of the location of pathology is much broader, and consequently, so are the possibilities for intervention (Minuchin, 2009). Training in third-generation therapies opens up a new range of therapeutic interventions worth discovering.
For the systemic approach, the “sick” person is redefined as a person “carrying a symptom” whose origin must be sought in a dysfunctional dynamic occurring in one or more of the systems in which that person is embedded. Therefore, in therapy, all members living in the family nucleus (father, mother, sibling, partner, etc.) usually participate (retrieved from mentes abiertas, September 24, 2016).
The family psychotherapist’s objective and the technique they use are determined by their theoretical framework. Structural family therapy is an action-oriented therapy. The tool of this therapy consists of modifying the present, not exploring and interpreting the past. The past influenced the creation of the family’s current organization and functioning; therefore, it manifests in the present and can change through present manifestations (Minuchin, 2009).
The psychotherapist associates with the family system and uses their person to transform it. By changing the position of the system members, their subjective experiences change. To this end, the psychotherapist relies on some properties of the system. Firstly, a transformation of its structure will allow at least some possibility of change. Secondly, the family system is organized on the basis of supporting, regulating, nurturing, and socializing its members. Therefore, the psychotherapist joins the family not to educate or socialize it, but rather to repair or modify its functioning so that it can carry out its tasks more effectively (Minuchin, 2009)
Thirdly, the family system has self-perpetuating properties; therefore, the process that the psychotherapist initiates within the family will be maintained in their absence by its self-regulation mechanisms. In other words, once a change has occurred, the family will preserve it, providing a different matrix and modifying the feedback that continuously qualifies or validates the experiences of its members (Minuchin, 2009).
The Relevance of Contextual Therapies
Contextual Therapies or Third Generation Therapies, such as family systemic therapy, are revolutionizing the field of psychology in the area of behavioral therapy. This change of direction justifies the need for specific, quality preparation, and this is what ISEP offers with the course in Third Generation Therapies and Application of New Technologies in Psychological Treatment. With this program, you will become a professional trained in the management of contextual therapies, complementing cognitive-behavioral intervention.