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Therapist Perspectives Paper

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Therapist Perspectives Paper
Therapist Perspectives Paper
Danita McNeill
Grand Canyon University
Summer 2013

A sixteen year old teenager refuses to leave home and the therapist must review the situation from a MRI therapeutic approach. First, the MRI approach would not focus on the problem or how it developed but rather what efforts have the parent made to reach a resolution. MRI stems from the premise that families use practical attempts at resolving their situation but the attempts are ill-advised. MRI’s main focus is aimed at dilemma driven solutions; there is no advantage in long term change or what capacity the problem serves within the family.
Haley and Madanes derive from the same school of thought but with some differences. Haley interest lay in the power struggles that exist and believe the “symptom such that the cost of keeping it up outweighed the gains”. (Niolon, 1999) Madanes was worried about out of place hierarchies, where an adolescent uses problems to alter the “behavior of parents”. (Niolon, 1999) Both agree that families function within a hierarchical order, thereby reconstructing the hierarchical and boundary issues that will prohibit “dysfunctional feedback loops from starting, a sort of plan ahead strategy”. (Madanes, 1981) The belief is as families we have problematic stages to endure, in order to arrive at a resolution stage. A therapist using this approach would also focus on the parents, along with family interactions. Therefore, the reason Jose has the problem is the behavior he has been learned from his parents, he has developed a problem from his observation of how his parent’s interact and solve problems.
The Milan’s school of thought is not solution driven but founded in the power struggles within the family dynamics that have occurred over a long period of time even through several generations enabling the family’s problems to continue
Techniques used for intervention in the strategic and systemic therapies are



References: Madanes, C. (1981). Strategic family therapy. (1 ed.). New York, NY: Jossey-Bas Publishing. Niolon, R. P. D. (1999, December). Strategic family theory and therapy. Retrieved from http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/counseling/strategic.html Nichols, M. P. (2012). Family therapy: Concepts and methods. (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Pearson Education Inc.

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