Structural Family Therapy

Abstract

The distinctive features of Structural Family Therapy are its emphasis on the power of family and social context to organize individual behaviors, and the central role assigned in therapy to the family, as the generator of its own healing. Like the individuals and families that it endeavors to serve, Structural Family Therapy was shaped by the contexts where it developed. In 1983, Salvador Minuchin left the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and founded the Family Studies Institute in New York, from where he endeavored to apply the structural paradigm to the work with larger systems that impact the lives of low-income families. Structural Family Therapy views the family as a living organism, constantly developing and adapting to a changing environment. Structural family therapists promote change in families through two kinds of interventions: challenging existing patterns of transaction, and supporting the enactment of healthier patterns.

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