Family Therapy Techniques – Help Building Up Better Relations

An effective treatment method that nurtures change as well as development in families and couple relationships is family therapy. This approach is generally used to achieve transformation through interaction systems that occur among the family members.

Family Therapy Techniques – Most Common Approaches

One of the widely held family therapy techniques used nowadays is the Bowenian Family System approach or the Intergenerational Family Therapy, which makes use of de-triangulation, non-anxious presence, genograms, and coaching methods in achieving family balance. Another known technique is the Adlerian Family Therapy or Individual Psychology which basically examines mistaken motivations of the adults and children in the family by exploring birth order and individual mistaken goals. The other widespread family therapy techniques are the Cognitive Behavioral and Milan Systemic Family Therapies. The latter typically employs modeling and systematic desensitization techniques while the former utilizes hypothesizing and circular questioning skills to progress with the healing process.

Structural Family Therapy – A Brief Overview

The popular structural family therapy basically views that family problems generally arise due to the maladaptive boundaries as well as subsystems that transpire within the overall system of rules and rituals governing various family interactions. Here, the functionality of different family patterns is evaluated through the dynamics that occur in the family structure, as well as its boundaries and subsystems, and then later understood by observing the recurrent interaction patterns that occur across time and circumstances. Moreover, structural family therapy emphasizes the three kinds of interpersonal boundaries which are the clear, rigid, and the diffused types in terms of determining the family’s general ability to successfully adapt to change.

Strategic Family Therapy – Unique Approach

In addition to the aforementioned techniques, the strategic family therapy is also known as an effective method in family counseling. It generally believes that dysfunctional symptoms tend to be purposeful in terms of keeping balance in the family hierarchy as it evolves through the family life cycle stages. This therapeutic approach generally involves five vital stages and these include identification of solvable problems, setting of goals, designing of interventions so as to achieve the goals, examination of responses as well as the therapy outcome. Usually, the strategic family therapy makes use of directives, positioning, and restraining skills for the changes or improvement of interaction in the troubled family system.