Other problems existed in the family's transactional problem, which involved the father becoming too intrusive and aggressive in his attempts to help and reach out to his daughter while the mother withdrew and the daughter felt increasingly more helpless. The mother, too, would end up feeling powerless, and the entire family became sadder as the situation remained unchanged, the therapist shared his assessment with the family, beginning with their strengths, and the identified issues were quickly agreed upon by the family members.

The contracting stage began in the second session, and though the parents initially insisted that they were only their to help their daughter through her depression, which they believed would solve many of the emotional stress issues in the family, they acknowledged that there were other problems in the family that needed attention. They agreed to use more supportive language to encourage each other, and to respect boundaries. This would allow the daughter to more effectively control her own personal development on the one hand, and allow the parents...

The expression of ongoing concerns was also a part of these sessions, and allowed the family to evaluate how they were progressing with the new expectations and behaviors contracted for. Specific situations were also brought up in the therapy sessions that would previously have been sources of great strife in the family, but with the techniques agreed upon in earlier sessions were handled without conflict and in such a way that the individual issues of various family members were mitigated.
The family pointed out that previous attempts at similar conversations became quickly hostile and hurtful. The therapist used this as evidence for the family that they could indeed discuss things even of high emotional content without causing upset. The goal of therapy was to produce this dynamic in the long-term interactions of the family, and appears to have been initially successful.