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Traditional Family Theory Applied to Couples
Bowenian Therapy is the child of Murray Bowen, arguably the father of family therapy:
Role of the Therapist - The therapist does many things, but tries to stay neutral while helping the partners gain insight into the multigenerational or societal framework for a problem, increase differentiation and decrease triangulation, and lower anxiety and conflict. They do this with "I" statements, questioning, story telling and genograms, labeling scripts and roles (like pursuer and distancer), and coaching and modeling better functioning.
Genograms help explore the family history, including scripts, ways of handling transitions, "proper" expression of emotion, gender roles... And teaches both the therapist and the partners about their families. Of particular interest is the Multigenerational Transmission Process, or the way the larger family passes on its patterns, and the Nuclear Family, or parents-children subsystem.
You can never escape your family. Run away and you are doomed to repeat it due to Emotional Cutoff, as you let your family be the guide to what you will (not) be and don't know how to be what you want. Fail to leave it and you become Enmeshed in it, as you don't know how to function without and will be especially powerless to avoid serving roles and functions in it. The healthy process is to Differentiate, being both joined and separate from it at the same time, and able to differentiate one's own feelings, expectations, and thoughts from those of others.
In general we tend to partner with someone with the same level of differentiation (which puts griping about your partner and his/her family in a whole new light). We also sometimes Return to the Family as an adult to see it as an adult and differentiate from it.
The Family Projection Process is how the family enforces its own, local, transmission process. This can lead to triangles and scapegoating, especially for the most poorly differentiated member. Some children, because of their sibling position, will be more apt to "fit" some projections and not "fit" others.
Triangles serve to lower the anxiety of being too close (and loosing identity) or too distant (and loosing connection) to the partner, and can interlock or chain together. Technically, you don't join a triangle as the therapist, but I don't see the harm in seeing us as forming a "healthy triangle" with the couple so long as we lower anxiety to the point they don't need us and then back away. Copied from the web.
Societal Emotional Process is like a Multigenerational Transmission Process, but it is the act of society communicating scripts and patterns to families, including those about race, ethnicity, age, sex, income....
Strategic Therapy is the child of Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes:
Role of the Therapist - The therapist is supposed to produce a change, one desired by the couple. Insight into why they aren't changing on their own means nothing, but acting differently does produces change. So, you develop a unique strategy to make them act differently. If they don't act differently, then you picked the wrong strategy or didn't do it right. Thus, the literature is peppered with a wide variety of wild an crazy techniques.... Don't go using these willy-nilly!
People act as they do to obtain power (Haley) or love (Madanes). Looking at the system to see who is left out, outnumbered, outvoted, unable to meet their needs... Will tell you where the problem is and why it hasn't resolved on its own.
Directives from the therapist prompt the family to engage in some strategy. They can be honest or not, cajoling or not, and "traditional" or not. The quality of the strategy is not the issue; the result of getting the family to do it is the issue. Some are straightforward (ordeals, coaching, penance, and directives), and some are indirect (prescribing the symptom, ordering excessive symptoms).
External System Elements must be dealt with, whether it is the sponsor, boss, referring source, child... These people impact the problem and its maintenance and must be included if change is to occur. You might have to do a bit off finagling to get them there... but do it.
Normalize the system, by nudging it to be normal. If the adult won't leave the house, and leaving the house is normal, then leaving the house is the goal. Copied from the web.
Structural Therapy is mainly the work of Minuchin:
Role of the Therapist - The therapist begins by Joining the couple, and becoming a temporary part of the system. That can mean kneeling down to talk to kids, using their choice of words to describe a problem... Be spontaneous, as the live, dynamic use of the self along with some humor is how you impact them, not with textbook techniques.
The problem is the Family Structure, and the way to change the couple is to reorder the boundaries around the subsystems (or holons) to fix it. Those can mean the couple, but also the couple as separate from siblings, kids, and inlaws. You might join subsystems and switch sides to nudge them where you think they need to go to alter boundaries. Boundaries that are too rigid mean closed systems, and too flexible and amorphous mean diffuse systems. You want an open system, with flexible boundaries.
Joining allows you to analyze the system and find where it is breaking down exactly, because the identified patient only carries the family problem so it is seen. There are many types of families that are tenable (pas de deux, multigenerational, show, accordion, foster, step, out of control, haunted...), and so you need to be flexible.
A key technique is reframing. This means putting the old problem in a new context, where it is not a problem, but a strength. This can be done while Challenging the Symptom, or how they allow the symptom to come to represent their dysfunction by making it stronger and more efficient. Another is commenting on the process ("Wait, did you see that? I asked you a question and he answered!") to observe how boundaries work, or tracking, making nonverbal gestures spoken ("You're nodding toward your wife when you say that. Is it her fault?"). This can be done as part of Challenging the Family Structure. Eventually this leads to Challenging the Family Reality. This can involve reframing too, but also enactment, the in-the-moment "make it happen" injunction from the therapist. The point is to change the couple's perception of what's wrong, pointing out what's been ignored but seems to be running alright, and re-challenging the problem in light of what appears now to be possible as a solution. Copied from the web.