Family Analysis : The Family Crucible

We are close to the brave new world in personal relationships, especially with the family unit. There is no family unit in the brave new world, you are on your own. To even think about having a mother and father is a horrible thing. We are slowly falling into the ways of the Brave New World. If we don’t start changing our ways then we are not going to have a sense of the family unit.

The family is made up of five people: Claudia, the IP; Carolyn, mother; Laura, the sister; Don, the brother; and David, the father. The family is coming into therapy because there have been mounting concerns about Claudia and her behavior—acting out, staying out late, some fairly typical teenage stuff. For the purpose of this paper, I will be starting at the beginning where the family is first coming into therapy. I will first school that I will apply is Structural Family Therapy and the second school is Bowen Family Therapy.

Approaches to Family Therapy: Minuchin, Haley, Bowen, & Whitaker Treating families in therapy can be a complex undertaking for a therapist, as they are dealing not only with a group of individuals but also with an overall system. Throughout history several key theorists have attempted to demystify the challenges families face and construct approaches to treatment. However, there have been key similarities and differences among the theoretical orientations along the way. While some have simply broadened or expanded from existing theories, others have stood in stark

Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson.

Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy employed to assist members of a family in improving communication systems, conflict resolution, and to help the family to deal with certain problems that manifest in the behavior of members. In most cases, deviance in a family member is an indication of underlying family dysfunctions. This paper looks the counselling procedure that can be applied to help the Kline family solve their problems. It answers certain questions including those of the expected challenges during therapy and ways of dealing with the challenges.

therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of

After a thorough review of the textbook and the course material, the specific family system approach that I choose to explore is the Bowenian Approach for this literature review. This specific family system approach is also known as the Bowen Family System Theory as well (D.V. Papero, 2006). The Bowen Family System Theory was established by Murray Bowen, a theorist and psychiatrist who specialized in treating children who were deranged and had schizophrenia (Rockwell, 2010). In the 1950s, Bowen wanted to explore a new venture so he decided that he wanted all of the family members of each child to be involved in an therapeutic process at the same time (Rockwell, 2010).

I knew college was going to change me in many ways. Yet, after my family and I restructured our collective and individual emotional reactivity over the three years that I was away at school, I believed my work in that department was done. I thought transiting into college was difficult, however, I found myself once again unprepared for the aftershock that rocked my family once I return from school. I left college a strong, independent, mature, and differentiated person, or at least I kind of did.

The Family Crucible, written by Augustus Napier and Carl Whitaker (1978), exemplifies a fragmented family system. The family consists of David a VIP lawyer, Carolyn an angry mother, Claudia an enraged teenager, Don the 11-year-old peacemaker, and six-year-old Laura. Co-therapists, Napier and Whitaker have taken on the task of working with the family using a systemic approach to conceptualize the family’s difficulties. Herein, this writer will describe how Whitaker and Napier depict the family struggles, how these struggles relate to the family unit in deference to an individual focus, and how

In The Family Crucible, Augustus Napier and Carl Whitaker’s form of therapy was strongly influenced by family systems theory, a burgeoning theory of the time. General systems theory examines relationships between elements that constitute a whole (Andreae, 2011, p. 243). When applied to families, this theory views the family as an emotional unit and uses systems thinking to describe the complex interactions in the unit (The

The family system is founded on the notions that for change to occur in the life of an individual, the therapist must understand and work with the family as a whole. In working with the family, the therapist can understand how the individual in counseling functions within his family system and how the client’s behaviors connect to other people in the family. This theory also holds the perception that symptoms are a set of family habits and patterns passed down by generation and not a result of a psychological problem or an inability to change (Corey, 2017). Furthermore, the family system theory holds the idea that when a change occurs everyone in the unit is affected by the change.

In the book The Family Crucible it gave detailed insight into the effort and knowledge necessary to assess and assist a family unit to bring homeostasis back into their lives. From the beginning to the end this book thoroughly covers the story of a family who believes their problems stems from one individual and come to find out there are other underlying issues that play into the initial reason for setting their first family therapy appointment. While the story unfolds there were several new insights and challenges brought to my attention.

Modern family is an American TV show that started in 2009 on ABC channel. Since then, this comedy show is one of the most watched shows in TV nowadays; so far it has won 22 Emmy awards from 75 nominations. Personally, this is one of my favorites TV shows ever because it is extremely funny but also it portrays its tittle, you actually see a modern family: its diversity, its struggles, its attachment, and so on. I really love this show because it is for any type of audience, children will laugh as hard as a grandpa. I think that through this show our young generations can actually learn a little bit more about family and its diversity and at the same time having fun. I personally know few families that will watch it every Wednesday at 9:00pm

The film, Precious, is a powerfully charged story that delves into the family dynamics of a 16-year-old girl and her struggles to survive an onslaught of treacherous experiences. Throughout the film, the viewer is enveloped in a dramatic web of extreme situations, experienced by the main character, and those to whom she is close. The themes of domestic violence, rape, incest, drug addiction, gambling, poverty, social justice, social services, housing and education are laced together throughout the story. Particularly poignant attention is paid to various systems that help shape the experiences of the characters. The social services industry, and its associated workers, educators and administrators, set the foundation for the social themes that are highlighted by this film.

Family is something that plays a tremendous role in our life. Even though the structure of families has changed over the years, it is important to acknowledge that there many families out there whether they are traditional families, nuclear family, stepfamilies or others which tend to have different types of problems in their families. Therefore, many families attempt to go to family therapy in order for them to obtain help in solving the different types of issues they might have at home. As stated in the book Family Therapy by Michael P. Nichols (2013), “The power of family therapy derives from bringing parents and children together to transform their interaction… What keeps people stuck in their inability to see their own participation in the problems that plague them. With eyes fixed firmly on what recalcitrant others are doing, it’s hard for most people to see the patterns that bind them together. The family therapist’s job is to give them a wake-up call” (2013).