Inspiration
The concept was inspired by the work of Milton Erickson, MD and Don Jackson, MD and has been associated with (but not limited to) the work of Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes (founders of Family Therapy Institute of Washington, DC in 1976), the Brief Therapy Team at the Mental Research Institute (John Weakland, Dick Fisch, and Paul Watzlawick), the Milan School of Family Therapy, and the work of Giorgio Nardone.
The theory of strategic family therapy evolved from many of the gains in early family therapy models that were made by Milton Erickson and Don Jackson, with many other influences from such therapists as Salvador Minuchin, Gregory Bateson, and other prominent early family therapists. Strategic family therapy grew along with, and out of, other theories, most importantly, structural family therapy in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, and later at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center. Many early family therapy theories were growing and influencing each other between the late 1950s and late 1970s. At first glance these theories don’t seem to have direct connections, but many of the influential therapists of the time worked with each other and there was a natural give and take between these theories.
Strategic family therapy was no exception to this organic growth of the theory. The main proponents and creators of the theory were Jay Haley and Cloe Mandanes. Jay Haley had worked at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto and the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center, and had worked directly with Erickson and Minunchin. Haley and Mandanes took their knowledge of structural therapy and the ideas of how families work on a structural level, but added ideas like making the therapist take more initiative and control over the client’s problems.
The therapist seeks to identify the symptoms within the family that are the cause of the family’s current problems, and fix these problems. In strategic family therapy the problems of the clients stem not from their family’s behaviors toward the client, but instead it is the symptoms of the family that need to be corrected. In strategic terms a symptom is “the repetitive sequence that keeps the process going. The symptomatic person simply denies any intent to control by claiming the symptom is involuntary.”
Read more about this topic: Strategic Family Therapy
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