COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL FAMILY THERAPY

Cognitive-Behavioral Family Therapy

Cognitive-Behavioral Family Therapy

Introduction

Families represent one of the most important contexts for human relationships. Although individuals experience many types of relationships during their lifetimes, both lay persons and experts in the field generally agree that family relationships are among the most influential and complicated. For instance, there are countless studies in developmental psychology demonstrating that the quality of key family relationships has important and long-lasting impact on the development of virtually every personality characteristic and form of psychopathology. (Minuchin, 1974) When family relationships function well, they are one of the most satisfying experiences a person can have. However, when family relationships do not function well, they are one of the most distressing experiences a person can have. When family problems emerge, families are  increasingly turning to family therapists for help. In fact, family therapy is one of the most common forms of mental health treatment. This entry discusses how family therapy is defined, reviews existing research about the efficacy of family therapies and about family therapy process, and explores current research to further understanding of the effectiveness of family therapy.

Discussion

Defining family therapy is a difficult task for several reasons. Family therapy is sometimes labeled by virtue of the presence of multiple family members in the therapy room, but also is at times labeled by the presence of a systemic perspective in any therapy format that emphasizes the family system in the therapeutic work. For instance, Bowen Therapy is an example of a one-person family therapy. As scientists have refined their conceptualization of family therapy, consensus has grown that what matters most is whether or not the therapy was family-based rather than who was present in the therapy room. (Sexton, 2003)

Further, many family therapies today are actually multicomponent treatment packages that may involve the use of medication, group sessions for a client presenting with a specific problem, sessions with family members excluding the client, individual therapy sessions for the client, psycho-education, and therapy sessions with all family members. There is also debate about whether couple and family therapies should be grouped together because they both involve treating multiple family members at the same time. Still, some believe that couple and family therapy differ sufficiently enough to merit separating the two. For present purposes, this entry uses family therapy to describe therapy methods that use a systemic focus on the family. (Nichols, 2001)

Family Therapy Principles and Models

To understand family therapy, it is important first to understand the basic tenets that underlie family functioning. A family typically involves two to four generations. A family is influenced and facilitated by the opportunities and constraints of its social context. To ensure its own existence, a family adapts available resources to normal and abnormal transitional and crisis stress events. Family resources involve the ability of family members to contribute tangible help such as material support, income, childcare, and household maintenance and nontangible aid such as expressive interaction, emotional support, instruction, and social training and regulation. All families have explicit and implicit rules that govern ...