A Brief Note On Counseling And Family Counseling - 1271 Words

Counseling Specialty Marriage and Family Counseling Focusing on Minuchin s Structural Family Therapy Bridget G. Cleveland The University of Memphis Authors Note: This paper was prepared for the introduction course 4611: Counseling, taught by Instructor Hatcher. Minuchin’s Structural Family Therapy of Marriage and Family According to Nugent and Jones (2009), Marriage and family counseling began between the 1940 s and 1950 s, but officially became a profession in the late 1970’s and 1980’s Gladding, 2007 (p. 176).† They stated, Marriage and family counseling is aimed at improving not only relationship problems, but also mental and emotional disorders within the context of larger family social systems (Nugent and Jones, 2009,†¦show more content†¦Minuchin work with a family many times and having seen his films, I am always impressed with his great skill in joining families. Although the techniques are described in detail in the book, one has to watch him to get a sense of the full impact of a skilled therapist (p. 63). It shows his ability to share a family’s language and tempo seems to reassure families very quickly that he will understand them. It has always seemed as though that this is a strong positive transference, which allows for the effectiveness of the var ious techniques which are described by the authors (p.63). Client Base/Description The typical client base for this type of therapy would be families that are in crisis with communication issues. A description of this therapy method would be a counseling session with a family that is in crisis because of living in secrecy, silence, and distance due to a family member has been molested. Minuchin would refer to this type of family as disengaged because of the isolation and disconnection over the deep rooted issue. He would first explore the interaction of this family by looking at their faulty communication and rigid habits that contributes to their dysfunction. Minuchin would then look at the three levels of transactional patterns within the family. He would then follow up with