Social Work Practice: Family Treatment

Paper Summary:

The paper explores three approaches to family therapy; functional family therapy (FFT), brief strategic family therapy (BSFT) and multidimensional family therapy (MFDT). The paper explains how these approaches are used in family treatment and intervention by the social work and family practice professions. The paper specifically applies these therapies to a family with a substance-abusing and delinquent adolescent son.

Outline:
Objective
Scenario
Introduction
Functional Family Therapy
Brief Strategic Family Therapy
Multidimensional Family Therapy
Summary and Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Family therapy is stated by Singer (1994) to have come of age in the 1970s and that "it was increasingly accepted in major psychiatric centers. Family therapists began to address themselves to a wider range of disorders" than only schizophrenics and their family members. During this time there were many new study centers and developmental therapies for family and the work of Peggy Papp (1977) Family Therapy: Full Length Case Studies" made a presentation of "the work of 12 prominent family therapists including herself." (Singer, 1994) This work illustrates the diversity of the treatments used during the 1970s for family therapy. During the 1980s, family therapy is described to have been a form of "reapproachment" and meanwhile "new concepts and techniques continued to emerge." (Singer, 1994) Included is the narrative approach as well as "the technique of 'externalizing' problems.""

Sample of Sources Used:

• Singer, Jonathan (1994) Triangles: A Study in Three Parts. Life Cycles. 9 Dec 1994. Online available at: http://home.flash.net/~cooljazz/mssw/triad.htm
• Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. New York: Basic Books.
• Barker, Philip (2007) Basic Family Therapy Oxford University Press, USA; 5th Ed.
• Sexton, T.L. and Alexander, J.F. (2000) Functional Family Therapy. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention December 2000.
• Szapocznik, Jose (nd) Brief Strategic Family Therapy SAMSHA Model Programs.

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