Strategic Family Therapy - Concepts and Processes

Concepts and Processes

There are a number of concepts and processes that must be applied that are instrumental for SFT to succeed. The initial session is one of these processes, and is broken down into five different parts, the brief social stage, the problem stage, the interactional stage, goal-setting stage, and finally the task-setting stage.

• The brief therapy stage seeks to observe the family’s interactions, create a calm and open mood for the session, and attempts to get every family member to take part in the session.

• The problem stage is where the therapist poses questions to the clients to determine what their problem is and why they are there.

• The interactional stage is where the family is urged to discuss their problem so the therapist can better understand their issues and understand the underlying dynamics within the family. Some of the dynamics that strategic family therapists seek to understand are: hierarchies within a family, coalitions between family members, and communication sequences that exist.

• The goal-setting stage is used to highlight the specific issue that needs to be addressed, this issue is both identified by the family members and the therapist. In addition when discussing the presenting problem initially identified by the family, the family and the therapist work together to come up with goals to fix the problem, and better define the parameters for attaining those goals.

• The final stage of the initial session is the task-setting stage. In the task-setting stage the therapist wraps up the session by coming up with concrete homework assignments or directives the family can do outside of therapy to start to change their problems. Additional therapy sessions seek to further gain understanding to a family’s problems, dynamics, and to dig deeper in addressing their needs through a confident, controlling, and compassionate therapist.