Summary of Experiential Family Therapy and Narrative Family Therapy
Group therapy comprises family and couples therapy treatment for a small group of individuals, between 4 to 12 persons who regularly meet to talk, interact, and discuss problems. Some of the techniques used in groups and family therapy are experiential family therapy and narrative family therapy. Experiential family therapy involves applying an intuitive approach through active and multisensory techniques such as role-playing and drawing. The experiential family therapy approach seeks to enhance affection in families and uncover new information to stimulation of positive change and beneficial growth in the family system. Narrative family therapy has a foundation on postmodernism and strongly emphasizes the interpretation of an individual’s subjective experience. DeCandia (2020) explains that narrative family therapy has a resemblance to intrapsychic tradition developments. The premise of this kind of therapy is on the possibility of comprehending every event that happens in one’s life objectively.
Narrative family therapy style aids people in becoming and embracing self-expertise in their lives. Narrative family therapy emphasizes getting family members to develop stories that carry them through their lives. The technique is characteristic of capturing and holding ideas that inform the narrative throughout the conversation. The technique supports the formation of possible conversational questions instead of telling the clients to ask specific questions. The method similarly uses narrative metaphors positioning subordinate story development, identity proclamation, deconstruction, and intentionality (Weisman & Montgomery, 2020).
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Comparison between Experiential Family Therapy and Narrative Family Therapy
The strength of experiential family therapy is its focus on a patient’s present situation, which allows them to express their emotions on their current experiences. The client thus gets time to share all about their life experiences without any fear. The clients get deeply involved in the resolution of their issues. The technique's advantage of deep involvement by the client allows them to fully express their feelings and critically scrutinize their connections and initiation of self-discovery through therapy, and understand their relationships to current behaviors. The technique also facilitates individual autonomy and bringing family members together in the sense of inter-connection or belonging. In this manner, family members encourage every of the family members’ individuation and growth of self. Clients can gain spontaneity, better creativity, and achieve their potential. The advantage of these experiential technique methods is encouraging sobriety among family members through healthy and functional support systems in the assessment of family dynamics and bringing experiences that lead to positive family changes. Bitter & Jon (2017) explain that the method places a high value on authenticity and being real while heavily relying on the therapist’s awareness.
Some of the weaknesses of experiential therapy include: experiential family therapy is a non-traditional therapy. Further, clinicians in experiential family therapy only focus on family members' experiences in the determination of the outcome of the problem. The technique further has a weakness in that the therapist prompts clients confronting issues without offering a solution. The client is pushed to confront issues and get answers to problems instead of helping them (Kelly et al., 2019).
Narrative family therapy has the strengths of its psychological and emotional upsides. One of them is self-awareness through externalization by the patient separating themselves from the problems at hand. By extension, the technique eases viable solutions through successful analysis of habits, patterns, and the improvement of the general quality of life. Self-awareness is essential and beneficial to recovery rates. Narrative family therapy increases personal responsibility by prompting clients to routinely prompt assessment of actions, habits, and decisions. Clients or patients make changes and modifications that enhance the quality of life by successful lifestyle changes. Narrative family therapy has the strength of leading to future success through inherent evolvement in helping people solve their problems (Vostanis & Bell, 2020). However, narrative family therapy has the weakness that some clients feel uncomfortable and find difficulty talking about the therapy process's expert role.
Case Study Suitable for Experiential Family Therapy: Depressed Jessica
In her mid-50, Jessica is a classic mother of 5 children, married for over 15 years, and active in the church and community. She first had depression after the birth of her firstborn and led to her doctor prescribed an anti-depressant. Jessica’s husband, Humphrey, was who earns a decent income, was very supportive even though things always seemed tough financially for them. It was challenging for Jessica and Humphrey to cater for their five children's dance, music lessons, football practice, and other activities, including church events. Jessica always felt she didn't have any time for herself and felt guilty when she took some time to undertake an activity she enjoyed. At one point, Jessica reached out to a church leader, but that didn't seem to help either. While Jessica knew of other depressed women taking medication, she felt her case was unique and that nobody understood her situation.
Experiential family therapy can help Jessica handle her feelings of hopelessness and help her achieve her aim of positively changing her life. She can learn to develop positive thinking skills in the process beyond mere happy thought and challenge her long-held beliefs that are hindering her form, finding happiness and peace. Considering her family and supportive spouse's size, Jessica can develop individual autonomy and have positive family inter-connection using the experiential family therapy technique. She will be able to enjoy life more with her husband and children through better connections between them.
References
Bitter, J. R., & Jon, C. (2017). Adlerian thought and process in systems of family therapy. Journal of Individual Psychology, 73(4) , 307-327.https://doi.org/10.1353/jip.2017.0026.
DeCandia Vitoria, A. (2020). Experiential supervision: healing imposter phenomenon from the inside out. The Clinical Supervisor , 1-18.https://doi.org/10.1080/07325223.2020.1830215.
Kelly, S., Wesley, K. C., Maynigo, T. P., Omar, Y., Clark, S. M., & Humphrey, S. C. (2019). Principle ‐ based integrative therapy with couples: Theory and a case example. Family Process, 58(3) , 532-549.https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12442.
Vostanis, P., & Bell, C. A. (2020). Counseling and psychotherapy post ‐ COVID ‐ 19. Counseling and Psychotherapy Research, 20(3) , 389-393.https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12325.
Weisman, C., & Montgomery, P. (2020). Implementation issues in functional family therapy: A narrative analysis of the evidence. Research on Social Work Practice, 30(4) , 460-471.https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1049731519867432.
