Structural Family Therapy

(Beginning to Intermediate Level)

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:

1. Summarize the primary tenants of Structural Family Therapy.
2. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
3. Explain how to gather information and how to use this information to assess a family from a structural point of view.
4. Identify the primary job/role of the therapist during the initial stage of family therapy.
5. Identify at least 3 interventions appropriate to this stage.
6. Identify the 7 categories of restructuring a family and describe how to apply these techniques.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Context for Structural Family Therapy
Theoretical Underpinnings
Fundamental Tenets
Role of the Therapist
History
Assessment / Diagnostic Impressions
Goals
Interventions
Sample Case Study Responses
Sample Vignettes #1-3

CONTEXT FOR STRUCTURAL FAMILY THERAPY

Structural family therapy was pioneered by Salvador Minuchin and his colleagues in the 1960's. He first began to formulate his theory while working as the Director of the Family Research Unit of the Wiltwyck School for boys. From 1962 to 1965 he treated the families of these delinquent 8 to 12-year old boys who came from some of the most disadvantaged sections of New York City. His research team included Edgar Auerswald, Bernard Guerney, Bernice Rosman, Florence Schumer, and Braulio Montalvo, also a writer and one who many consider to be an unrecognized co-founder of structural family therapy. His primary interest here was in studying “The structure and process of disorganized, low socioeconomic families that had each produced more than one acting-out (delinquent) child; and...hoped to experiment with and develop further therapeutic approaches designed for such families” (Minuchin et al., 1967, p. ix). In the late 1960's Minuchin continued the development of his theory at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, where he was the Director of the Family Therapy Training Center. Here his colleagues included Montalve and Rosman from the Wiltwyck School, as well as Jay Haley, Lynn Hoffman, Harry Aponte, Lester Baker, and Ronald Liebman. Salvador Minuchin has done much work with impoverished families and blended families. His work here focused on what he referred to as “psychosomatic families,” especially families that included an anorectic.

Minuchin takes a systems approach, but focuses on immediate issues related to boundaries, distance, closeness and subsystems within the family context. “The single most important tenet of this approach is that every family has a structure and that this structure is revealed only when the family is in action” (Nichols & Schwartz, 1991). He works from a position within the family and focuses on the task of directed behavior change. Structural family therapy incorporates many of the ideas of the communicational approaches, especially Haley and Jackson, but is much broader in its perspective. There is also an emphasis on broadening the perspective of the family to see beyond its presenting problem. The family wants the therapist to “side” with them and change the I.P. The therapist sees the I.P. as the one who is calling attention to the family structural dysfunction.

This can be a short term therapy that works well with blended families, families with severe pathology, and impoverished families. It provides the therapist with many interventions and the opportunity to be directive. The limitations are that it can be too hierarchical for some families and it requires the presence of the entire family.

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