Chapter 7 EoC Questions - Pascual Medina
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Feb 20, 2024
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1.
What are the principal tenets essential to understanding strategic family therapy? Discuss.
One of the main underpinnings of strategic family therapy is that communication is non-
optional, meaning people are always communicating. The lack of communication communicates the desire to not communicate, and so forth. Everything that a person does, says, or acts is a form
of communication. A second tenet of strategic family therapy is the functions of messages, of which there are two. The first function is a report function, which is the more overt or obvious messages made to one another. Command functions are hidden or covert messages that imply something regarding the relation between those communicating. A further tenet of strategic family therapy is the concept of family homeostasis, which is the balance that all families eek to reach in regards to emotional and holistic stability. In some families, problems that result in dysfunction in some families may be required in order for a family to feel as if they are at homeostasis; not all families are like this, however. 2.
Why is the concept of metacommunication critical to understanding strategic family therapy? Give some examples of metacommunication and discuss how you would understand their importance within a family relationship.
Metacommunication is important in understanding strategic family therapy as it is communication about communication itself. Meaning, metacommunication, in a therapy setting, can serve as a way for people to express their thoughts and feelings about the communication process itself. People can break down their thinking for a professional and have their way of solving problems analyzed. The therapist, in a family therapy setting, can help other family members become aware of their positive and negative feedback loops, and how they may impact member of the familial system. Therapists can analyze the observed communication patterns and give out suggestions for facilitating healthy development and more efficient ways of communicating. One such example of meta communication is criticizing how another person communicates. This could take a few forms; one could criticize the volume or tone of one’s voice, or the vocabulary they choose to use. This type of metacommunication is important because it can result in tension amongst the family members, as they are not focusing on the issue at hand, opting for personal attacks instead. Another common form of metacommunication is interrupting
one another. This form of metacommunication is significant as it can be demonstrative of a family’s values regarding assertiveness but shows that they may have a lack of respect for one another’s perspectives. 3.
Strategic family therapy has a number of techniques. Identify a few of them and discuss how each technique contributes to the overall success of this therapy.
One technique of strategic family therapy is directives. Directives are specific assignments given out by a therapist that must be completed within a certain amount of time, sometimes within therapy sessions. These are given to each family members, and the tasks usually relay on communication between family members. These directives serve to put family members in a position in which they must negotiate and cooperate to complete a task together, which can shed
light on dysfunctional first-order and second-order processes. Another technique utilized is ordeals, which are a specific a type of directive. Ordeals are unpleasant tasks that are assigned when an identified problem behavior occurs. This could mean making yourself clean the gutters when you feel like hitting your son. This forces you to go through an unpleasant ordeal instead of
going through the problematic behavior, which the threat of can lead to thought and contemplation on how one could communicate better. Rituals are another technique; these involve the entire familial system having to carry out specific tasks in a specified pattern that is set out to highlight certain patterns of family interaction. This can involve making something arbitrary like rock, paper, scissors decided whether or not to be to one to have to discipline your child. In changing the pattern of behavior, the therapist forces clients to reconsider their initial react to each other and further change their own individual behavior.
Another technique utilized in strategic family therapy s positive connotations; this is a similar
concept to reframing. This technique serves more to identify the purpose of actions in the greater
scheme of the familial system, rather than on and individual-to-individual level. This highlights the purpose of the action, and what purpose it serves in maintaining the family homeostasis of the system. Pretending is another technique; this would involve an individual family member acting out an identified problematic they have and the family members portraying their accurate reaction to the behavior. This serves as a model for the therapist to take notes on and dissect, from which they can prescribe further techniques and new patterns of behavior for the family to abide by and try out. It also serves to demonstrate the level of control and family has, and their capability to overcome and make second-order changes to their familial system.
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