Systemic Therapy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Systemic Therapy, or Marriage and Family therapy, is a professional and conscious attempt and method to study, understand and cure disorders of the interactional whole of a family and its individual members as family members. The aim of Family therapy is that the interactional patterns which prevent individual growth will change. This is achieved especially emphasizing and trying to find the hidden positive resources in family’s interactional whole. In Family therapy the therapist or a family therapy team meets in the session those family members willing to participate in discussion about the topic they have or some of family members has defined as a disorder or problem. The number of sessions depends on the disorder, but the average is 5-20 sessions. The basic theory of family therapy is derived mainly from object relations theory, cognitive psychotherapy, systems theory and narrative approaches. According to the main theoretical perspectives, family therapy can be classifies as follows: Psychodynamic; structural; behavioural or cognitive; strategic; reflective and narrative models. The main indications of family therapy are as follows:
- Serious psychic disorders (e.g. schizophrenia, addictions and eating disorders);
- Interactional and transitional crises in a family’s life cycle (e.g. different separation and individuation crises or divorce crises);
- As a support of all other psychotherapies and other psychological and psychiatric therapies (even medication).
