Bridging the Gap: Helping Families in Crisis

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Running Head: Building Family Alliance Bridging the Gap: Helping Families in a Crisis Pamela Allen Grand Canyon University: PCN 521 Instructor: Nicole Rollins April 11, 2012 Bridging the Gap: Helping Families in a Crisis Introduction Family therapy can be challenging when interacting with a family to develop alliances, which is sometimes influenced by preexisting family history. Although there are different approaches for treating behavioral problems through therapeutic practices such as building alliance based on the family needs, expectations, and ability to forming a healthy home environment. Family therapy can be productive and effective. Building Family Alliance Working with families can be demanding and difficult especially when no one wants to participate or continues to blame each other. However, in order to provide effective and timely treatment, the therapist must understand and motivate each family member interactions (Nichols, 2010). According to Nichols (2010), it is important to reiterate the initial phone call so that everyone will know and understand why they are in therapy. In order to build alliance in the Rodney’s family session, I must first build trust in me as a therapist. This will allow them to open up and express their feelings. As a counselor, I should also have and use a strategic plan. Within this plan, I would separate the children and adults to gain and establish trust, confidence, and honesty. The importance of this strategy is help each member learn how to communicate, set boundaries, and respect each other individuality but remain compassionate and understanding of their feelings (Friedlander, Escudero, Heatherington, & Diamond, 2012). Monitoring how the family interacts with one another will also help me develop a treatment plan to help set goals and tasks but I must remember not

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