This order is an article review in the general topic of marriage and family counseling. It reviews an 2009 article written by Jill Dubin that models a new genogram foundation for use in marriage and family therapy. Dubin presents the "Basic Needs" Genogram, which essentially is an intervention tool that can help people in therapy expose when their needs are not beig met in a relationship and how they can change their behaviors to meet their needs better.
¶ … Reality Therapy in Marriage and Family Counseling
We as human beings all have our own unique needs and desires. It is from these basic needs that our behavior is modeled, both in regards in how we act inside the conext of relationships, but also in general behavior tendencies. Human behavior is directed at meeting those basic need structures. From this standpoint, Dubin (2009) presents a new intervention tool, known as the "Basic Needs Genogram," which is a genogram that can be implemented in contemporary marriage and family counseling.
The primary focus of the article was review Reality Therapy as a way to model a genogram that can be implemented into modern practice. Reality Therapy "is used as a means in therapy to facilitate problem solving" and generate real solutions to problems that individuals face in the real world, outside of the safe environment of counseling sessions (Dubin, 2009, p 16). In the cases of relationships, either romantic or familial, when parties within the relationship feel their needs are not being met it may result in destructive behavior. Such behavior could be a lashing out at the other party because the individual feels neglected, or it could be a selfish move of one party at the disadvantage of the other. Regardless of the impact, it is clearly a negative influence to have one or more party members feeling like their needs are not being met within the context of a relationship they hold dear to them. This can result in the destruction of relationship. As such, therapists have used the tenants of Reality Therapy as a way to help improve relationships by getting individuals to tailor their behavior and communication to better facilitate meeting their basic needs. This type of therapy has been used more and more in marriage and family counseling, as it helps empower individuals within group relationships to make a target plan for their behavior and provides them tools to reach those goals within their own unique realities.
The author also outlines the concepts of genograms as a crucial element to the new model being outlined within the article. In counseling, genograms "have been used historically to illustrate the emotional patterns within a family unit that are typically repeated from generation to generation" (Dubin, 2009, p 17). Use of genograms in marriage and counseling therapy help provide a greater individual insight into the behavior and communication patterns that are dominant in their relationships, and how those patterns can be targeted to improve the relationship overall. Dubin (2009) explains that genograms can be especially useful in Reality Therapy because they help expose dysfunctional behavior patterns and elicit methods for adjusting behavior to improve relationships.
From this discussion, Dubin (2009) then moves to presenting a new and unique model for implementation in both marriage and family counseling contexts. The current article models the "Basic Needs Genogram" as the primary method to be tested in contemporary therapy structures. This is a genogram that is based off the works of Glasser (1998) and breaks down our complexity of needs into five basic categories: "self-preservation, love and belonging, power or self-worth, freedom or independence and fun or enjoyment" (Dubin, 2009). These needs are interconnected and help drive behavior within the context of relationships, whether those relationships are marriage of familial structures. Dubin (2009) suggests that the Basic Needs Genogram will allow individuals, as well as family members to consider how current and past generational patterns influence the formation of their 'picture albums,'" which then dictate how their own relationships are formed and maintained (Dubin, 2009, p 17). It is essentially an intervention tool to expose the roots of behavior and communication patterns as not being able to facilitate the ability for the individual to satisfy their basic needs. Through understanding how they can better direct behavior and communication to work towards meeting their basic needs, individuals can work with a set of tools that they can bring with them into their own unique realities. With the set intervention tools, individuals in family and marriage counseling can learn to build ways of strengthening their interpersonal relationships together.
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