Family Therapy & Systemic Practice

3160 Words13 Pages
------------------------------------------------- FAMILY THERAPY AND SYSTEMIC PRACTICE It is very difficult for us to come to terms with a ‘systems’ perspective since we live in such an individualised world and are free to make our own individual decisions. However, within the family unit we discover who we are, we develop and change and live by unspoken rules and routines that we hope will keep the family and its members functional. With this in mind, Family Systems perspective holds that we are best understood within the context of our family unit, the interactions we have with members of our family and the society in which we live. Family therapy addresses the problems an individual encounters throughout their life within this context (Corey, 2005). Family therapy is not a single treatment method but is based on a number of systemic approaches such as strategic, structural and Milan. Family therapy focuses on interactions among family members, quality of relationships and family development. It bases its assumptions on the wider social context i.e. community, society and the culture to which the family belong. The systemic perspective views the problems of the individual in relation to the different contexts in which people live. It looks at their part in the family – child, sibling, parent, spouse etc. whilst also taking into account their status outside the family. Systemic practice regards the context in which the individual lives as being vital to their psychological growth and emotional well-being. The goals of the therapy are to explore why the client/family are in need of the therapy, how family patterns maintain and facilitate the problem, what members bring from the past that continues to feed into the problem and finally to reassess the problem and suggest alternative options (Corey, 2005). The assumptions of family systemic theory
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