Structural family therapy: concepts and clinical applications

Structural Family Therapy

Individuals who plan to spend the rest of their lives together are charged with the task of crafting a life together. Where do they get the blueprints for building this life together? How do two people know how to join together to form a relationship known as a "couple"? The environment in which we are raised contributes a great deal to who we are and to how we interact with one another. It is only natural that we use the paradigms we grew up with as a basis for our future relationships.

However, what if the relationships one uses as a model are so deeply flawed that they ended in divorce? Structural family therapy offers a way to help address this issue by allowing individuals to develop tools that will help them navigate successfully through the confusing and conflicting stages that they will go through as they plan to share their lives together. Adult children of divorce may have specific issues to address in this regard. According to Lappin (1988), "One can say that a person's problems are a result of present relationships, or past relationships, or both. Regardless of the source of the difficulties, one must still decide what to do about them. Guidance in making these decisions is something the therapeutic alliance can provide.

Minuchin's (1972) work on the therapeutic benefits of family therapy provides the framework for this approach. He sees therapy as a "transitional event," one in which the therapist's role is to facilitate the family's transition from one stage to another. While the history of relationships is important, it is viewed as something to be explored, understood, and examined in such a way that the flawed system of transactions that characterized the family can be displaced, relationships realigned, and methods of interaction redefined (Minuchin 1972).

Colapinto describes structural family therapy as "primarily a way of thinking about and operating in three related areas: the family, the presenting problem, and the process of change" (1982). Simon's (1985) of Structural Couple Therapy (SCT) takes this further, viewing this type of therapy as a way to "produce an adaptive structure for the client system." This model would be applicable to a variety of relationships, including those who are involved in divorce proceedings as well as those who are in the planning stages of a life together. Simon further describes its applicability to couples who are engaged or already married, as well as "unmarried couples whose mutual commitment is not in question" (Simon 1985).

Process of Therapeutic Change

Colapinto's work focuses on the process of therapeutic change, which takes into consideration the concept that solutions to problems in family structure are resolved through modification of this structure (Colapinto 1982). Family members develop ways of dealing with one another; within the very definition of family lay the inherent set of relationships that make up the family unit. A hierarchy is in place, and long-term habits are ingrained by the time children grow to adulthood. Adult children of divorce who are on the threshold of their own relationships have these flawed family units as basic models for their own imminent relationships. Working within Colapinto's framework, these relationships must be examined so that ways to form new relationships can be adjusted. The relationships themselves may need to be redefined, and sources of controversy explored and discussed: "Frozen conflicts have to be acknowledged and dealt with so that they can be solved -- and the natural road to growth reopened" (Colapinto 1982).

Colapinto's approach is divided into two parts. The first, described as the introduction of "joining techniques," might be described as the relationship between the therapist and the family (or couple). Much importance is placed on the strength of the therapeutic alliance, which is something the therapist must not only focus on in the initial stages of therapy, but throughout the therapeutic relationship. The more encompassing part of the approach is what Colapinto refers to as "techniques for disequilibration," which are the techniques that will be used in the process of effecting change. Enactment, boundary-making, reframing, and punctuation are all methods that can be used by the therapist who is working with adult children of alcoholics in helping them to change their perceptions of past relationship models to healthier, more positive paradigms on which to build the future.

Outlook

Working with adult children of divorce presents definite challenges. Within the framework of structural family therapy, the approach is to see the ways in which social rules and regulations are transmitted from adults to children, who then grow up and carry on what they have seen modeled. If the blueprints for future relationships are flawed, the blueprints can be adjusted. As Minuchin et al. explained as early as 1967, "the family system is at a crossroads between society and the individual, transmitting social rules and regulations to the growing child and providing blueprints for his cognitive and emotional development."