FAMILY THERAPY

Family Therapy

Family Therapy

A description of family

In this family there are Mother, father (employed) four children, three girls of ages 14, 12 and 7 years old and a boy of four years old. Sibling rivalry, no order in family, father laidback, and mother has no support from father, children seem to take upper hand. Third child bullied, youngest dominant, oldest isolates self, second confused. Parents argue in front of children, but does agree sometimes cultural information- mother Italian father from New Castel. No tradition as such, too fluid with boundaries patterns in the family. Mother initiated conversation mainly. Youngest child seem to be given extra attention by mother, refuses to obey father. Oldest and mother does not seem to agree on anything. The family impacted on me as a boy I will scream if I had such a family with no order.

Discussion

Sibling rivalry

The most obvious thing that I observed in this family is Sibling rivalry. As it has been mentioned earlier the four children in this family can not get along each other and they don't support each other.

Therefore conflict arises due to the relationship they have daily with one another, hence sibling rivalry. And because siblings have interdependent relationship of one another it is impossible not to have a conflict. In this case children relation with their parents isn't smooth. One of the reasons for this is because of the age difference between children. Age spacing plays a major role in sibling rivalry because the closer the age the more intense the rivalry. In this case the youngest boy is 4 years old; he tries to get as much parental assertion than necessary just to have that feeling of being loved over his sisters. This causes aggression from their part because they feel he tries to rob them off their spot.

Another major problem that I observed in this family it was that parents argue in front of their children. It is always suggested that while arguing in front of the children parent should keep in their mind that they should not argue on some topics and consider the age of their children as in this case the youngest one is just 4 years old.

The essence of all family or systemic therapies is an understanding of people in terms of their relationships with others: an individual is always considered as a member of a social group, usually, but not necessarily, the family. The family, in turn, is considered as a system in interaction with other systems, such as the neighbourhood, school, work and health and welfare agencies. In practice, however, the focus of the therapist's interventions has typically been on the family group, although, it must be said, family therapists seem to be well aware of variations in the definition and understanding of what constitutes 'the family'. A number of ethical issues are raised when seeing people through this lens.Some critics (Epston & White 1992 pp.89-120) have argued that family therapy has over-focused on the family ...