Family Crucible
In the book The Family Crucible, family therapists Carl Whitaker and Gus Napier (1978) team up to help a family with dangerous levels of discontent and animosity towards one another. At the center of the rift are the adolescent daughter Claudia and the mother Carolyn. At the periphery are the 6-year-old daughter Laura, an 11-year-old son Don, and the father David. On the surface, it is Claudia's behavior problems that are blamed by both parents for the family's woes. However, during the first meeting with the entire family present, it quickly becomes clear that problems with the marriage may be to blame. This essay will examine the parenting dynamics uncovered by Whitaker and Napier during their family therapy sessions, including the parenting styles used and attachment matrix that exist in the Brice family.
The Brice Parenting Styles
On the surface, the father appears to have an authoritative parenting style because he demands that Claudia be respectful to her mother. However, his primary concern about Claudia's behavior seems to be that she gets along better with her mother. He does not appear to intrude into Claudia's life to the degree that the mother does, nor set authoritarian behavioral guidelines. He seems to truly care about Claudia's suffering, but may be indulgent at times simply to avoid conflict with either Claudia or Don.
The mother comes off as having an authoritarian parenting style with respect to Claudia. This parenting style is...
Family Crucible Oftentimes, when spouses begin to have difficulties with their marriage, they lose track of the impact that their arguments have on the children. They are so wrapped up in their day-to-day difficulties, that the rest of the family becomes secondary. In the Family Crucible by Napier and Whitaker, the daughter becomes so depressed that psychological help is required. It is then that the family as a whole has to
Brice Family SYSTEMS Napier and Whitaker exemplify systems therapy with their presentation of the Brice family case. It is necessary to identify the origins of the systems approach in order to fully appreciate its value in the context of family therapy. It approaches the family unit as a system and therefore borrows heavily from systems theory. Systems theory is a general theory applies across many disciplines and looks at systems that have
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