STRATEGIC VERSUS STRUCTURAL FAMILY THERAPIES
Family therapy is considered as a form of psychotherapy treatment that has been established to deal with specific challenges affecting the psychological health and functioning of the family. Generally, families can benefit from therapy when they experience any stressful event that can strain family relationships, when there are major transitions and everyday concerns like communication problems, as well as mental health problems that can impact the family as a whole. However, since the aim of family counseling is to promote understanding, cohesiveness and collaboration among family members, nurse practitioners are required to understand different counseling techniques such as structural, strategic, systematic, towards solving family problems (Nichols, 2014). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss about the similarities and difference between structural and strategic family therapy.
Structural Family Therapy and Strategic Family Therapy
Structural family therapy is a type of family therapy that was established by Salvador Minuchin to deal with challenges that can affect the functioning of the family. In most scenarios, therapists who utilize structural family therapy in the area of practice normally focus on modifying and reinforcing family system, towards understanding the unseen rules that control the functioning of the family, observe the relationship between family members, as well as disrupt dysfunctional relationships within the family, hence, causing the family structure to be stabilize into healthier patterns (Nichols & Tafuri, 2013). Generally, the main purpose of structural family therapy is to modify communication style among family members by encouraging them create appropriate boundaries, which can result to healthier family structure.
On the other hand, strategic family therapy is a method of psychotherapy where the therapist assigns homework to the family. Usually, this family homework are envisioned to adjust the way family members interact by assessing and changing the way they connect and make conclusions (Szapocznik, Muir, Duff, Schwartz & Brown, 2015). For that reason, family members are encouraged to perform as they usually do in their normal relationships, towards identifying the possible cause of their problems (Horigian, Anderson & Szapocznik, 2016).
Comparison between Structural Family Therapy and Strategic Family Therapy
Similarities
When examining the similarities between these two models, indeed both of them have a common goal of facilitating behavioral change, improving communication patterns, as well as eliminating dysfunctional relationships within the family. Also, both models insists on the significance of identifying how the intrapsychic world impacts a person’s health and combination into the family structure, and how adjusting interpersonal relationships can help the family attain successful results during therapy. According to the study that was done by Sheehan and Friedlander (2015), family therapists can decide on whether to use one model or combine both of them while diagnosing and solving family problems. Similarly, both models use intervention approaches like joining with the family system that are considered helpful when assessing family issues, towards outlining plans for solving them.
Differences
A key difference between these two models family therapy is how each applies changes to the family system. For instance, structural family therapy states that the interpersonal connection between family members can be enhanced by concentrating on adjusting the dysfunctional family system, while strategic family therapy maintains that family system changes gradually once the interpersonal connection between family members have been modified (Gerlach, 2014). Also, therapists who utilize structural family therapy can apply several interventions mechanisms such as family mapping and join, while therapists who use strategic family therapy can utilize several techniques such as planning, practical assessment, and problem identification that are helpful when examining family problems towards improving family relationship.
However, since these two models have some similarities and differences, they share unique strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, considering the strength of these two models, both models insist on the importance of family system both outside and inside family structure through assessment, clarification, understanding, as well as alteration of dysfunctional relationship to environmental factors. On the other hand, when examining the weakness between these two models, they center highly on individual relationship in the family system, but fail to examine and deal with the intrapsychic and emotional factors of separate family members included in the dysfunctional network.
Structural family mapping
As I was executing my clinical duties in our healthcare facilities, I came across with a family who had issues and concerns with their 6-year-old son who was very disturbing during family session. Both parents reveal that they have been shifting blames to each other concerning the parental responsibility and their communication is poor, something that has forced them to seek medical assistance that will deal with their son’s behaviors, as well as improve their communication style. There structural mapping is as follows:
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A1
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F
C
Therapy Recommendation For the family
Considering this family, the best therapeutic approach that can be recommended will be strategic family therapy. The purpose of selecting this model is because the caregivers will design strategies and procedures that will be used by the family, towards assisting them identify how to deal with their family issues. As a result, the parents will be able to identify how to improve their communication style, as well as identify how to deal with the behaviors of their son.
References
Gerlach, P.K. (2015). Use structural maps to manage your family well: Basic premises and examples. Retrieved from http://sfhelp.org/fam/map.htm
Horigian, V. E., Anderson, A. R., & Szapocznik, J. (2016). Taking Brief Strategic Family Therapy from Bench to Trench: Evidence Generation Across Translational Phases. Family Process,55(3), 529-542. doi:10.1111/famp.12233
Nichols, M. (2014). The essentials of family therapy (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Nichols, M., & Tafuri, S. (2013). Techniques of structural family assessment: A qualitative analysis of how experts promote a systemic perspective. Family Process, 52(2), 207 215. doi:10.1111/famp.12025
Szapocznik, J., Muir, J. A., Duff, J. H., Schwartz, S. J., & Brown, C. H. (2015). Brief strategic family therapy: Implementing evidence-based models in community settings. Psychotherapy Research, 25(1), 121–133. doi:10.1080/10503307.2013.856044
Sheehan, A. H., & Friedlander, M. L. (2015). Therapeutic alliance and retention in brief strategic family therapy: A mixed-methods study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 41(4), 415–427. doi:10.1111/jmft.12113