Lecture 2
Structural Therapy = Mininuchin and boundaries and restructuring family,
joining is really big
 What maintains a system
 Organization maintains a system
 First order change- Focusing on the problem and the problem or symptom might go away
but the problem may resurface
 Second order change- Changing the system and the structure
 Minuchin and his team stated that they will work by doing
 Use family structure to help a family fulfill its task in patterns
 If you change structure you will relieve the system or the problem
 Families need to change and update to complete life tasks
Family Structure
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Invisible sets of demands or rules that organize the way families relate to each other
The right way is influenced by cultural, life experiences, and saying what works in your
family works
Once you have a structure it limits possibilities
Will always look at subsystems and boundaries and how they go together
What happens in one subsystem influences the other system
Boundaries
 Emotional and physical barriers that define the amount and kind of contact allowable
between members
 Autonomy for individuals or the subsystems but there is a connection for the ability to get
information and share information.
 Disengagement- rigid boundaries, little contact and little we-ness
 Enmeshment- diffuse-very involved
 Does this family system have effective leadership
 Is it weak and ineffective?
 Coalition is viewed as more negative than alliance and are secret and usually leave
someone out of the system
Development of Issues
 Look at the structure that is not working, is there effective leadership
YOUTUBE CLIP
 There was a diffused boundary between siblings and there was symptoms that was
affecting the hierarchy
 Teenagers were absorbing so much of the responsibility
 Goal is to restructure
 You need hierarchy in the system
 You need the parent to step up
 Putting kids to bed technique-Letting mom take charge
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Structural therapists use compliments, and shaping, and showing tools for them to set the
boundaries
Structural therapists look at boundaries, subsystems, and hierarchies
Therapy Techniques
1. Joining and accommodating
2. Enactment – see who interrupts or who joins (you have to be ready to step into
this enactment and have an idea of where you want the structure to go
3. Highlighting and modifying interactions – how good parents are at identifying the
patterns (you two gang up on sister, What happens when your brother tries to
come in the room, make sure questions are relational
4. Boundary making – for healthy functioning, a family must protect the integrity of
the total system (kids being allowed to have their door closed, and allowing the
sibling subsystem to have a boundary within their selves) Have people change
their seating arrangements
5. Unbalancing – throwing weight to someone who might have a little less power
6. Challenging unproductive assumptions- you see an assumption a family gets stuck
in and you will challenge it, especially around beliefs around hierarchy
Example Questions – D. Joining
Example Question :Unbalancing involves taking sides, realigning relationships
Journal 2- Look at your relational system,
Lecture 3 – Strategic Therapy (looking at sequences while looking at the structure
 Strategic Therapy –Reframing more and more directive, Feedback, problems come from
people trying to protect and control
 Take whatever role I need to in order to get change and take role to get symptom relieve
that is ok
 Could be that the clients ganging up on you in order for you to change
 Therapist will say let me look at the system to see what I need to disrupt the system as
quick as possible
 9 dot problem, systemic theories really like to think outside the box
 First order change is that logical behavioral order change
 Second order change is something illogical to change the rules of the system
Foundation of Strategic Systemic Theories
 See what’s going on to disrupt the system
 History in communication
 Mental Research Institute(MRI) Milan group, Haley theory Structural)
 Get a clear definition of the problem, what is going on
 Think of the system of creating some stability in the family
 Weakland, fiish, and woslogick (MRI)
 Haley, madonis, Milan group
 Boscolo, Chechin, Palazzoli, Prata
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Taking away privileges, time out what would be a big difference (a 180-degree difference
is to be soothing and loving, some kind of relational building and a more relational
building than punishment,
Beliefs about change
 Creating changes by paradoxical and directives
 1.order Changing an action 2. Order change system reinforcing and upholding the action
 Logical first order change for changing your body is to change diet
 Illogical second order change for relationship to changing our body is traveling to other
cultures, relationships, sociology classes
 Games- believes driving the symptoms
Outline of Therapy Process
1.define problem
2. identify attempted solutions
3. describe desired behavioral change
4. develop a plan
Main Methods/interventions
 Text directive to child to get to work and pay attention to break up interaction of coming
into the room
 Paradoxical – I want you to come in the room every time you come into the room and tell
him what to do I want him to get on the floor and suck his thumb
 Ordeals – make the system harder to have,
 Circular questioning- asking different family members of asking them their view of the
problems in the family system, who would be concerned the most if the symptom went
away
 Positive reason – there is a positive reason why the symptom is happening, it maybe
protecting the family
Example questions for unbalancing involves taking sides in other systems$
Primary goal of MRI is D
Both strategic and Milan Systemic Therapies aim to achieve personality through E. none of
the above
Journal #3 Use circular questions
Lecture 4 Bowenian Therapy
Intergenerational therapies – our pasts our still alive
In contextual therapy- is the great addition to relational ethics and give and take between people
 We want to connect but we want to be separate and have our own thoughts
 We are constantly fighting these two lie pulls
 Chronic anxiety – general base line of anxiety someone has been handed down in terms
of Bowenian theory, automatic arousal when life stressors happen
 Emotional intensity and chronic anxiety is the speed of how emotion travels and how big
the emotion is
Family Emotional System
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In our emotional system when one thing happens it gets passed to all of us and we feel
the anxiety in the system and if we are more fused the anxiety gets passed in all the
systems
 You might see over functioning and under functioning, its hard for individuals to name
their differences and individual differences can’t be expressed even when they are there
Differentiation of Self
 Intrapersonal – person’s ability to separate thoughts from feelings in pressure and
anxiety
 Interpersonal – autonomy vs fusion , do I have an autonomy of self in relationships
can I hold my own believes to what I’m thinking or do I just conform to the
relationship
 Characteristics of high Differentiation – not taking on something that someone is
experiencing and still being there for them but not taking on that emotionality, can be
clear in our thinking, , someone who likes to be altruistic, or giving, increase in
awareness of self
 Characteristics of low differentiation- inability to hold own emotions separate from
people around you, indecisive, not tolerating someone because you can hold your
own emotions, someone needing to call their family members all the time to get
their opinion on something, look at people who are easily swayed, or people who
bullied because they cannot tolerate the difference
 Basic self- core values and beliefs, basic self has a boundary doesn’t change
 Pseudo self- functional self-relational self, impacted influence by relationships
Triangles
 When there is anxiety between two people it is not stable
 What helps relieving that tension is the triangles
 we want to be a functional triangle; a functional triangle helps relieve the function of the
problem
 a problem triangle perpetuates the problem
 If things become patterned,
 Ex. One of the ways im looking at your family is with differentiation
 Problems are problematic because of this
Cutoff
 Be present without being emotionally present or physically remove self from the family
system
Family projection process
 Somehow in the family system a child absorbs more than the others and is less
differentiated than their siblings
 It could be birth order and what parents grew up in their own family in birth order
 They would look at nodal events- big things that are happening in the lifespan, death,
illness, anniversary events when the child was born and the chronic anxiety will increase
Multigenerational Transition Process
Sibling position
 Rank and Gender
 He says that two eldest in a relationship will not be good for each other
Emotional Process in society
How individual functioning is often affected by societal anxiety which impacts
differentiation and functioning
There are times when we don’t have differentiated leaders we become stressed and it impacts
all pieces of society
 How in periods of high stress parents are affected by functioning
Level of differentiations impacts ability to handle stress
Increase differentiation of self and to manage anxiety
Therapy
Differentiation of therapist
Assessment -genograms
Therapeutic Techniques
-process questions (lower emotional reactivity)
Relationship experiment
Neutralizing triangles
Bowenian would say you talk to me and not to each other in the session to calm the symptoms
down
Help you think about emotions, so it is not so automatic, identifying what defies you
Journal 4 -using own words
Example questions
Lecture 5
EXPERIETIAL FAMILY THERAPY MODELS
Humans are doing the best they can with the humanistic models
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Experiential models will have the emotions primary
Goal is to help people feel all parts of themselves
Therapist authentic use of self
Having a cotherapist helps us look at what is going on and how we are using
ourselves
Carl Whitaker tried to get the family to open up
If you believe in something it is going to have a different impact
Symbolic experiential – therapy of the absurd (things that will turn the system ).
Satir work was all about making contact with self, other, and content
 Getting more real with ourselves and being able to share with others
 Temperature reading (appreciations, worries, concerns and puzzles, complaint and
solutions, new information, hopes and wishes
 Self-esteem -impact how we interact with others
 What stood out to be people in the relationships to their own selves
 Satir wanted us to own all parts of ourselves
 Self- being able to connect with ourselves,
 Connecting with others, intimacy and expectation
 Context- professor, student, relationship on how we connect is based on the context
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Survival stances- any circumstance where self-esteem is stressed, we go into way to
protect our self-esteem and a way to protect ourselves
Placating – satir survival stance when someone please others they would feel less
stressed, someone saying please accept me, please love ill to do whatever (figuring out
the persons desires would be the target
Self-esteem (Ask about person’s identity, times that they felt high self-esteem, when is
that person there best, clients values and how they connect to their values ,
Blaming- instead of looking at ourselves we blame others, our first response is what you
did wrong, (increase empathy, feeling in response to you )
Super reasonable – withdraw from others, folks that are overly moralistic, they don’t
look at their own humanist, the rules say no so its no, emotions are very challenging at
times
Irrelevant – people who protect when stressors go up by distracting, changing the
subject, they don’t say and make contact they are not working to understand others
Congruent- satir was about this in all her work, choosing to be ourselves to relate
and contact others to connect with people directly
Satir- really big on touch
She wants us to be in touch with our bodies and u relationship with each other
Be deliberate what feels respectful and congruent
Sculpting- giving families another way to share what is going on versus just
communicating with words , show me tell me with your body to experience what is
going on with you
Lecture 6 - Solution focused therapy
 Solution focused therapist says we can change the frame of how we talk with clients we
don’t need to know the cause to come up with the solution
 If it isn’t broken don’t fix it
 We stick to what a problem a client brings in
 If its not working look for something different
 Change generate change
 The times the problem is not happening
 Symptoms maintain because people focus to much on the problem
 .if you had a miracle wand , what would be the first thing you would notice
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General role of the therapist
See what has been working and see what the client wants in their lives
 Goals will be specific and concrete
 Complimenting how clients are working towards their own defined goals
General interventions
 Positive, collegial, solution focused stance
 Clear treatment goals (set by client)
 Presession change (what changes have you noticed since you made the appointment )
 Ok so what would you want to change, what would be helpful
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Miracle question – You can use crystal ball, magic wand, time machine, set it up and help
people look at their miracle and possibilities (helps gives us clear behavioral treatment
goals, and positive goals,
Scaling question – at what number will you be satisfied, why aren’t you a t a one
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Models have specific steps to use in the room
Lecture 7 – Narrative Therapy
How we spend our stories based on social stories
Realities shaped by conversations we are having
There is a lot of power in telling your untold story, sometimes we tell the stories of our
life and there is power to paying attention in the saturated stories
When they find the saturated stories, they get really descriptive about it
How culture has taught me to view myself or oppress me
I selectively prune and just keep connecting those dots
What messages come from culture and society
Symptom and disfunction will be about dominant discourse and the saturated story and
view their lived experiences through a saturated story and not live through their
preferred narrative
Role of therapist is to listen and ask questions, questions, questions
Listening to those narratives on the way the world should be
Consider themselves coauthor or core editor
Through questions around narrative
 Video clip -Therapist was able to keep the conversation straight forward and if
someone tried to interrupt the therapist would redirect it to the person that is trying to
speak
 Asking what effect does this problem have on you , and they kept trying to
blame sibling but kept asking how does this problem have an effect on you
 Narrative therapist have specific ways of working with questions
 “ I wanna know when did anxiety enter your, what was your first cues that this
problem was starting what were you thinking,
 When does depression enter your life,
 Linguist freeing that person from that problem +
 Mapping influence of the problem and mapping the influence of the person
 How problem has impacted the client intrapersonal
 Look at the clients relationship, when depression enters your family what
happens between you and your husband.
 Mapping the influence of the person on a problem-ways that
person resist the externalized problem
Ex. How have you tried to stop depression take over, what are the ways you can
push back, tell me about this weekend, how were you able to enjoy your weekend
 When did you first notice anxiety in your life
 Negative- when did depression trick you into staying in bed,
 When were you vulnerable to allow anxiety to dominate your life
 When does the anxiety show up the strongest or the loudest?
 Which of your current difficulties comes from being anxious? What does anxiety
have you doing that you don’t want to do
 Unique outcome and problem saturated stories ,
 Landscape of action- what happened and what did you do , if I were to create a
video what would I see in the moment
 Landscape of identity- what was your purpose or intention, what would protesting
mean about not being valued
 What does this action say about your hopes and dreams for the future
 Therapist will ask about the individuals meanings values and beliefs
 How does learning this about you make a difference, how does this connect to
your hope and dreams to becoming a therapist
 Meeting the person
 How did the anxiety evolve to where it is now?
 What were things like before you decided to stay inside
 When you are out and the anxiety is telling you that your not safe and we
shouldn’t be helpful what do you think your aunt would do?
 Do you think anxiety also visits your aunt
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Hear the aunt describe her anxiety and that I’m the only one, this is what she does
with it,
How did he manage fears and anxiety before the pandemic , and having to go to
school
How our bodies have those responses to things that aren’t a threat anymore , and
there is a way we can see it as a threat
Unique outcomes- explore what he wants to do as he gets older and wants to
experience and value in the future , doing small stuff now.
5 for each type of narrative therapy for one of our cases for the journal
Impacting how depression has an effect on you
Do you feel there are days it is easier to invite depression into you life
Lecture 8 - Introduction to internal Family Systems
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Key figures- Richard Schawrtz
Theoretical underpinnings- multiplicity of the mind
We have different ways of expressing ourselves
This model talks about concept of self and capital S self which is spiritual, and they
connect it to the Budha energy
Main assumptions
 We all are born with parts
 Everyone has a self
 Self as healing energy and entity
 No parts act alone
 Inner changes impact outer changes
 Inner processes impact both clients and therapists
Key constructs
Self- differentiated client energy so they can understand inner world and their experiences
 Curiosity, calm , courage, compassion, clarity, creativity, confidence, connectedness
Parts- subpersonalities, inner people multiplicity
 In IFS all parts are welcome, we are not trying to get rid of them , we welcome them
 Understand why its doing what it is doing, and look at options doing it differently,
 Usually see one way of getting their best interest of the system achieved
 There are inner dynamixs and form a complex inner system
 Each parts desires to gain influence
 They become polarized or aligned with one another
Parts can be experienced as
Thoughts, feelings, sensations, images, words, felts sense, voice, sounds , physical
symptoms. Movements
A part of me feels this way. Or im being pulled this way
Protective partsDedicated to keeping the system safe, guard from being hirt again,
Cannot give up. Their role until exiles they are protecting are healed
Need to build a relationship with them
Understand their. Motivation and what they are attempting to do
How do they function for and in the system
What are the roles of self -criticism
Protective parts- manager, firefighter.
Managers- try to keep us self , to avoid pain from surfacing
Firefighter- reactive, emergency active workers, they do anything to distinguish the pain going
on in the system (ex. Will see some addictive behaviors, or numbing behaviors
Exiles- wounded younger parts of system that carry a lot of the pain and often frozen,
Vulnerable parts that often hold the pain of the system, they aren’t given hance to be feeled
Blended and burdened
Blended- part has taken over and is undifferentiated from another part or self
Burdened – this happens when parts have taken on negative painful beliefs and feelings abot
themselves and the world (start taking beliefs about themselves and ther worth, haven’t been able
to update their beliefs about themselves
First thing we do is help the client get to know and befriend the protective
(I defiantly hear a part of you defends the protector so you don’t feel sadness, what is the
protectors role,
Center for slef leadership
GOAL NOT TO ELIMATE PARTS BUT TO HELP THEM RELAX SO PARTS DON’T
HAVE TO OVERWELM A SYSTEM , UNBLENDING AND DIFFERENTIATING THEIR
SELF FROM PARTS, BEFRIEND PROTECTORS, UNBURDEN NEGATIVE BELEFS AND
FREE PARTS FROM EXTREME ROLES
TWO MAIN WAYS OF WORKING WITH CLIENTS- DIRECT ACCESS, OR INTERNAL
CMMUNICATIOON/ INSIGHT