All families (couples) face challenges. Unspoken assumptions, unresolved hurts, and undependable support create tension and insecurity. Children, in-laws, job pressures, and a shaky economy can make things worse. Once spouses – partners, family members feel isolated and misunderstood, it’s very difficult to get back on track to friendship, compromise, and romance.
In addition, modern, sophisticated couples (families) face special challenges. With greater expectations, performance demands, constant time pressure, and the complications of social class, the possibilities for confusion, resentment, and loneliness are enormous.
In such a climate, it’s hard to maintain an enjoyable life.
Both at work and at home, successful people need various human relations skills; a balance of logic and intuition; the ability to participate in and resolve conflict; insight into one’s own strengths and weaknesses; and the self-discipline to communicate productively when upset or anxious.
During and after working with Dr. Denisa Legac you can expect to acquire insight and skills regarding:
* communicating more productively, with less effort
* bringing an end to chronic conflict
* increasing trust
* identifying poisonous power dynamics
* separating private family life from business life
* recognizing and managing anxiety
* making and keeping agreements
* enhancing joint decision-making
* relaxing, enjoyable, low-stress sex
etc………….
Systemic Family Counseling
SFT suggests addressing the structure and behavior of the broader relationship system that informs the character of the individual.
Systemic Family Therapy Approaches
Many forms of family therapy are based on family systems theory. Family systems approaches generally fall under the categories of structural, strategic, and inter generational:
• Structural family therapy looks at family relationships, behaviors, and patterns as they are exhibited within the therapy session in order to evaluate the structure of the family. Therapists also examine subsystems within the family structure, such as parental or sibling subsystems. Relationships between children and parents. Structural family therapy was designed by Salvador Minuchin, who would employ activities like role-playing in a therapy session.
• Strategic family therapy examines family processes and functions, such as communication or problem-solving patterns, by evaluating family behavior outside the therapy session. Therapeutic techniques may include re-framing or redefining a problem scenario or using paradoxical interventions – those that suggest the family take action that appears to be in opposition to their therapeutic goals in order to create the desired change. Strategic family therapists believe that change can occur rapidly, without intensive analysis of the source of the problem. Prominent psychotherapists such as Jay Haley, Milton Erickson, and helped develop strategic family therapy.
• Inter-generational family therapy acknowledges generational influences on family and individual behavior. Identifying multi-generational behavioral patterns, such as managing anxiety, can help people see that their current problems may be rooted in previous generations. Murray Bowen designed this approach to family therapy, and he used it in treatment for individuals and couples, as well as families. Bowen employed techniques such as normalizing a family’s problems by discussing similar scenarios in other families; describing the reactions of individual family members; parents and children, as opposed to acting them out; and encouraging clients to respond with “I” statements, rather than blaming statements.
References:
1. Brown, Jenny. (2008, September). Is Bowen Theory Still Relevant in the Family Therapy Field? Journal of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Association of NSW Inc 3. Retrieved from http://www.familysystemstraining.com/papers/is-bowen-theory-still-relevant.html
2. Family Solutions Institute. (n.d.) Strategic & Systemic. Family Solutions Institute MFT Study Guide. Retrieved from http://www.mftlicense.com/pdf/sg_chpt4.pdf