Structural Family Therapy (SFT): Study for CA MFT Licensing Exam

I am using these flashcards to study for the CA MFT Licensing Exams in 2011. This set is about Salavador Minuchin and his Structural Family Therapy (SFT). 

37 cards   |   Total Attempts: 188
  

Cards In This Set

Front Back
Salvador Minuchin
Answer 1
Created Structural Family Therapy (SFT)
Structural Family Therapy (SFT) addresses problems within a family by...
Charting the relationships between family members, or between subsets of family
Focus of SFT
Structure of the family, including its various substructures
An essential trait of SFT
The therapist actually enters, or "joins", with the family system as a catalyst for positive change
Family rules
- An invisible set of functional demands that persistently organizes the interaction of the family
- Important rules for a therapist to study include coalitions, boundaries, and power hierarchies between subsystems
3 types of family stressors
1) Extra-familial
2) Idiosyncratic
3) Developmental
3 boundary continuum points
1) Enmeshment
2) Semi-diffuse permeability
3) Rigidity
What ability determines a family's level of functionality?
The ability to adapt to various stressors
What determines a family's level of ability to adapt to various stressors?
The clarity and appropriateness of its subsystem boundaries
What 2 elements do dysfunctional families exhibit?
1) Mixed subsystems
- i.e. coalitions
2) Improper power hierarchies
- i.e. an older child being brought in to the parental subsystem to replace a physically or emotionally absent spouse
Minuchin believes that change must be ___ and taken in ___ steps for it to be useful and lasting.
Gradual; digestible
Subsystem isolation
- One-way mirror technique
- To teach those family members on the viewing side of the mirror to move from being an enmeshed participant to being an evaluation observer
- Therapist joins family member(s) in the viewing room and points out the patterns of transaction occurring on the other side of the mirror
Family structure
Through its transactions, a family establishes a set of rules for its daily functioning, and these rules form its “structure.”
A family
A system that operates through transactional patterns
What do repeated transactions establish?
Transactional patterns in the family