Family Therapy an Early Designation of Psychotherapies

Family Therapy

An early designation of psychotherapies divided all types of psychotherapy into two major categories: insight-oriented therapy and action-oriented therapy (Woolley, Wampler, & Davis, 2012). This designation was made on the basis of the therapist's main focus in achieving positive change. An insight-oriented therapy focuses on assisting the client develop knowledge or awareness about themselves as a major focus of change. The insight itself leads to positive change in the client. Action-oriented therapies directly focus on changing some behavior as opposed to relying on self -- knowledge or awareness to facilitate the change. The designation is not mutually exclusive; in all action-oriented therapies some insight is gained and in all insight-oriented therapies there is some direct change of behavior. However, the designation is valid when determining the focus of the therapist regarding the main target of the therapeutic intervention.

For example, Experiential Family Therapy attempts to facilitate change by means of a commitment to increasing self-awareness, self-fulfillment, and expression or communication between family members (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2012). Clients are encouraged to examine their feelings, the family cohesiveness, communication patterns, and reducing defensiveness and family members by unlocking levels of experiencing and freeing people from impulsiveness and defensive reactions to one another are the goals. The primary motor of change in experiential family therapy comes from insight or awareness into patterns of communication, recognizing destructive repetitive patterns of communication and enactment the family members, and experiencing self-fulfillment in family relations. The awareness that family members experience leads to more integrity among members, improved relations, and improved individual functioning.

Structural Family Therapy attempts to gain insight by understanding the family system. The focus of a structural family therapist is to identify and acknowledge the hidden hierarchies, rules, conflicts, etc. that are present in the family system and lead to discomfort or even pathology such as eating disorders in individual family members. For instance, the family of a young anorexic girl is viewed as contributing to the girl's eating disorder by making her issues the focus of the family interactions instead of dealing with these issues directly (Goldenburg & Goldenburg, 2012). The therapist attempts to actually join with the family system in order to understand these relationships and alliances and then help the family disrupt these dysfunctional patterns and stabilize into more healthy patterns of behavior. The major tenet of Structural Family Therapy is that the family system is a major facilitator of psychopathology and not the individual.

As opposed to the more insight-oriented methods of family therapy Behavioral Family Therapy attempts to identify the antecedents and consequences of specific problematic behaviors within the family and then change one or both of these in order to directly change the unwanted behavior (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2012). As a result, the focus is not on gaining insight or knowledge or awareness but instead on directly altering some type of unwanted or problematic behavior that exists in family members. For example, a disruptive child may actually be having their behavior reinforced by parents and teachers. A Behavioral Family Therapist would analyze the antecedents and consequences of the behavior and then implement a schedule of change for either one of these. In addition, the therapist would attempt to reinforce more positive were desired behaviors in the family or in the family members.