Social Work Practice with Families

August Wilsons: Fences

Part 1

How would you explain Psychoeducational Family counseling to your fictional family?

Psychoeducational family counseling means providing family members with information and education related to mental health services when seeking or receiving the services (Poyamoghadam et al., 2021). The goal of psychoeducation is to assist the family in better understand mental health conditions. When family members understand their challenges due to their mental health problems, they will have better-coping abilities.

Psychoeducational family counseling will assist the individual suffering from mental illness to remain courageous when faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges. For the fictitious family in Fences, Troy has mental challenges, and the family is not aware of how they can assist him. Therefore, if they receive psychoeducation, they will understand him and support him and encourage him to face his challenges. With family support, he can begin to receive mental health treatment through counseling. The family could be encouraged to participate in the counseling sessions to offer support. Families tend to get relief when they know families are facing the same challenges they are facing.

Psychoeducation will assist the individual with a mental condition know more about the condition they have been diagnosed with and what they should expect from therapy (Poyamoghadam et al., 2021). Many people do not understand mental health conditions, making it challenging to seek counseling services. However, when they are provided with adequate information and knowledge, they are better off and can begin their treatment. Psychoeducation is not an approach to treatment. It represents a vital step in treatment since it offers the individuals involved in a patients care information on how to support the person and maintain their emotional health. The family members understand the mental health concern affecting their loved one and information on how they can support their loved one.

Describe how you could utilize Psychoeducational Family Counseling with them?

The Maxson family is unaware of mental health issues they might be facing, which means the first step would be to educate the whole family about mental health issues and how they manifest. Once a diagnosis has been made of a particular mental health concern, the therapist will invite all the family members and provide adequate information regarding what is ailing their loved one. The family members will be provided with information on how the condition will impact their functioning and what they should expect during treatment. There will be medications prescribed to their loved ones, and most of these medications will have side effects. Therefore, being aware of these side effects will be communicated to both the client and the family members. They will efficiently manage the side effects when they are all aware of the signs of drug side effects. The psychiatrist will inform the family how each...…resulting in Cory neglecting his roles. The structure should be reinforced, and each family member should be encouraged to stick to the structure and perform their duties as specified and expected. With a concrete structure, the family will be pulling in the same direction, and there will be reduced conflict between family members.

The family subsystem is clear where we have the spousal subsystem, parental subsystem, parent-child subsystem, and sibling subsystem. However, there are challenges in the spousal subsystem, which are being shown in the family structure. Troy and Rose have marital problems leading to them not seeing eye to eye and Troy having an affair. Cory can pick out these problems and leads to him disrespecting his father. Troy does not have a parent-child relationship with either of his sons. Therefore, the parent-child subsystem is only applicable to the mother (Rose).

There is nothing regulating contact between the family members. Boundaries are nonexistent with the Maxson family. Troy interferes with the other subsystems and does not want anyone to interfere with his subsystem. Without respecting his childrens decisions, Troy limits what the children can do, making it hard for the children to pursue their desires and talents. If Lyons lived with Troy, he would not be allowed to pursue his jazz music career. Cory was denied the opportunity to play football. Boundaries would have ensured that each subsystem could perform its…