Family therapy is a concept of psychotherapy that involves organizing and holding sessions with all members of a family. It is a significant part of psychotherapy whose aim is to investigate family welfare issues and instigate measures that will improve the wellbeing of the families involved. Family therapists have several models to use when delivering family therapies. However, structural and strategic family therapy models receive greater emphasis than the others. Many articles compare and contrast the two models and their application to different family situations. This paper provides a comparative analysis of structural and strategic models by highlighting their similarities and differences. After the analysis, one of the models is applied to a family therapy example.
Structural Family Therapy
The concept of structural family therapy involves refining the self-esteem of the individuals involved and family networks. This model emphasizes the need for family members to change their approach on how to diagnose and treat various family dysfunctions. The therapist will explore techniques that a family can use to intervene and to enhance the perception of family members involved. According to Nichols and Davis (2020), during the investigation of underlying family dysfunction, a therapist can choose to use a family structure map to determine the problem and initiate an integrative intervention method. In this approach, the therapist will focus on the nature of the family interactions and how they contribute to the identified dysfunction (McNeil, Herschberger, & Nedela, 2013). The intervention will also involve realigning the family perception. The structural model’s main principle is that once a balance in the family’s structural interactions is established, the problem becomes easy to solve.
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Strategic Family Therapy
The strategic family therapy, on the other hand, focusses on a planned approach to solve the underlying problem or dysfunction. For example, Szapocznik, Muir, Duff, Schwartz, & Brown (2015) claim that strategic therapy diagnoses the underlying condition by giving directives during the process. The family is more involved during the process because they will participate right from the start to the end. The family implements the required behavioral change among the victims by eliminating contacts that may fuel the problem. If the maladaptive interactions relapse, the victim’s relatives re called upon to assist by engaging in behaviors and techniques that improve the nature of interactions.
Comparison of the Models
The focus of these two models is to initiate and facilitate change in the victims’ behaviors, to improve family communication, and to eliminate the dysfunctional issues that interfere with the interaction of the family members. This means that both models, despite using different approaches, share the same goal of removing the maladaptive practice that affects the individual or members of the given family (Nichols & Davis, 2020). Secondly, the two models help the therapists and victims to find and maintain the required balance within the family by changing its structure. Even though the models have several similarities in application and outcomes, it is upon the therapist to identify the one which is appropriate to the given family condition and use (Méndez, Qureshi, Carnerio, & Hort, 2014). Also, both Structural and strategic models are used widely and effectively among youth with behavioral problems.
Differences and Weaknesses
The main difference between these two models is how therapists use them to bring about the desired change in a family system. McNeil et al. (2013) argue that the focus of the structural family therapy model is on changing the structure of a dysfunctional family to solve the problem. A strategic model, on the other hand, focuses on a relational strategy to solve the family problem. Critics of the strategic model claim that it is narrow and reduces the freedom of the families. The problem with the structural model is that it ignores the basic structure of a family within nuclear families.
Another difference between the two structures is the role of the therapist during the intervention process. During strategic family therapy, the therapist gets more involved by directing the process and restoring family interactions. The therapist will be present to observe how the family members handle the issue and during the behavioral change to address the problem (Nichols & Tafuri, 2013). In structural therapy, the roles of the therapist are reduced. They only have to help in eliminating the dysfunction by providing the required structural change to the family system.
Example of a Family in Practicum
I encountered a family consisting of a 41-year old mother of three. The children were 14, 10, and 5 years old. They were living with their mother after their parents divorced two years earlier. Their father lived in a different state (Méndez et al., 2014). The mother described their marriage as abusing, and sometimes, the eldest daughter would watch them fight. The fights affected the child psychologically. When they presented at the facility for therapy, the mother claimed that her ex-husband rarely contacted them and would visit the children once after a very long time.
Therapy and Justification
This family seems disjointed with little organization. The father lives in a different state from the children, and communication among them is not effective. Due to the lack of structure, it is important that the therapist initiates a particular structure to begin correcting the situation. As the situation stand, the family members are not able to adapt to the changes introduced by their divorce. The parental subsystem is also disengaged, meaning that it needs reorganization. The structural family therapy will intervene by creating a family patter, followed by improving interactions within the new structure created.
References
McNeil, S. N., Herschberger, J. K., & Nedela, M. N. (2013). Low-income families with potential adolescent gang involvement: A structural community family therapy integration model. The American Journal of Family Therapy , 41 (2), 110-120. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01926187.2011.649110
Méndez, N. A., Qureshi, M. E., Carnerio, R., & Hort, F. (2014). The intersection of Facebook and structural family therapy volume 1. The American Journal of Family Therapy , 42 (2), 167-174. doi:10.1080/01926187.2013.794046
Nichols, M., & Davis, S. D. (2020). The essentials of family therapy (7th 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
