This paper presents a case study analysis of family therapy intervention for a family voluntarily seeking counseling, primarily concerning a son involved in the juvenile justice system. Drawing on Goldenberg and Goldenberg's overview of family therapy models, the paper evaluates the applicability of strategic, trans-generational, constructivist, and postmodern approaches to the family's complex circumstances. The paper argues that postmodern narrative therapy is the most appropriate framework, as it empowers each family member to reshape personal goals while acknowledging overlapping issues of poverty, social isolation, health challenges, and generational patterns of unemployment and criminality. Practical counseling strategies and short- and long-term goal-setting are discussed throughout.
The family willingly sought family therapy to help them through a crisis involving their young son. Because counseling was not imposed from outside, this should make the therapeutic process easier and more constructive. However, there may be considerable initial resistance from the rest of the family to discussing other underlying family issues and coping mechanisms that need to be addressed in order to find a long-term, holistic solution to the family's conflicts, and to its economic and psychological needs.
Because therapy was solicited by the family to address a specific member and a specific issue, the strategic model of family intervention might initially seem most appropriate. The family may argue, with some justification, that the goal is straightforward: get the boy back in school, off the streets, and into employment so he does not violate his parole and return to the juvenile detention center (Goldenberg & Goldenberg 86). Upon further examination and probing by the family counselor, however, it should become clear that the entire family structure is problematic as it currently exists, and is showing signs of stress and strain that extend well beyond the son's immediate problems and acting-out behavior.
These family strains are not purely age- or generation-related conflicts, which rules out trans-generational therapy as the primary framework. They do appear to reflect a lack of functionality rooted in class and poverty. Constructivist or structural models that focus on the individual alone would also seem inapplicable here, since all family members have issues that are separate from — as well as connected to — fissures in the general family structure. At the same time, socially oriented philosophies that treat the family's problems as part of a larger social network of ills do not adequately account for the peer adjustment difficulties of the family's daughter or the serious health problems of the mother.
Each available model therefore addresses only part of the picture. A narrowly strategic approach risks ignoring the family's deeper structural dysfunction. Trans-generational models do not fit because the conflicts are not primarily driven by intergenerational difference. Purely structural or constructivist approaches overlook the collective dimension of the family's struggles, while broad sociological frameworks fail to honor the specific, individualized needs of each family member.
Instead, drawing on postmodern theories of family counseling intervention, each family member must learn to rewrite his or her own life narrative in a more effective way. Postmodern counseling's focus on personal narrative shaping and goal-setting is an empowering framework for this family, offering a path out of some of the traps of isolation and depression that contribute to their current circumstances. The counselor might suggest that each family member needs to reach out into the larger community for support, in different ways suited to each person's situation.
Clearly the son needs to find an occupation — in school or in employment — that gives his day structure and creates the potential for a future. A similar goal must be set for the father, in order to prevent the son from simply patterning his life after his father's vocational model. The postmodern approach is particularly well suited to this family because it is non-prescriptive: rather than imposing solutions, it invites family members to identify and pursue their own meaningful goals within a supported framework.
"Tailored goals set for son, mother, and daughter"
"Family resistance and failure narratives examined"
"Ongoing counselor involvement deemed essential"
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