Family Therapy: Concepts, Techniques, and Practices

Question 1: Family Health and Structure

Consider Minuchin's concept of family health. What structure needs to be in place for the family to have the greatest chance of being healthy

Psychodynamic models emphasize insight, motivation, unconscious conflict, early infant-caregiver attachments, unconscious intrapsychic object relations and, more recently, actual relationships and their impact on inner experience. How essential do you feel each of these aspects of psychodynamic therapy is to family therapy? Explain your answers.

Most contemporary psychoanalysts no longer maintain the original Freudian view that the therapist and patient are entirely separate individuals with the analyst

interpreting the patient’s verbal productions from the perspective of such constructs as the Oedipal Complex. For several decades analysts have recognized the importance of the unconscious processes that occur between themselves and their patients that affect the success or derailment of the treatment. What additional responsibilities do you imagine this clinical belief of mutually influencing unconscious dynamics imposes on the analytic/dynamic therapist?

Describe the difference between hypothesis-generating and hypothesis- testing research designs. Which would you adopt in studying family relationships?

How would you feel about filling out an extensive questionnaire prior to seeing a therapist with your family? Are you more or less likely to reveal privately held thoughts in writing or in front of your family?