Therapy Models - Experiential, Cognitive-Behavioral and Collaborative Language Based - Research Paper Example

Family therapy can educate families about the illness and work out problems associated with care of the family member. For children and adolescents, family therapy most often is used when the child or adolescent has a personality, anxiety, or mood disorder that impairs their family and social functioning, and when a stepfamily is formed or begins having difficulties adjusting to the new family life. Families with members from a mixture of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds, as well as families made up of same-sex couples who are raising children, may also benefit from family therapy.

Regardless of the origin of the problem, and regardless of whether the clients consider it an "individual" or "family" issue, involving families in solutions is often beneficial. This involvement of families is commonly accomplished by their direct participation in the therapy session. The skills of the family therapist thus include the ability to influence conversations in a way that catalyzes the strengths, wisdom, and support of the wider system. Cognitive-behavioral model The term cognitive refer to the ability to utilize the mind in terms of remembering, thinking, problem solving and planning.

In this perspective psychologists explore the way human beings process, store and retrieve information and how this information can be used to reason and solve problems. It postulates a dynamic relationship among personal factors, social factors and physical environment. For example two patients with same same conditions but different personal factors. In the model, change is dictated by cognitive factors (I think) that is, strict behavioral factors. In contrast, the emphasis in operant conditioning is on responses with the basic premises that is a function of its consequences; behaviors with rewarding consequences are strengthened, whereas those with negative or aversive consequences are weaken or extinguished Problems are the result of operant conditioning that reinforces negative behaviors within the family’s interpersonal social exchanges that extinguish desired behavior and promote incentives toward unwanted behaviors.

This can lead to irrational beliefs and a faulty family schema. The techniques include; Therapeutic contracts, Modeling, Systematic Desensitization Shaping, Charting, Examining Irrational beliefs. Observable responses are developed and modified in specific environment. For example, a behavioral psychologist will be interested in how people and animals develop certain emotions like fear and love or how incentives like presents, punishment can influence behavior. Collaborative language based model.

In Collaborative language based model, Individuals form meanings about their experiences within the context of social relationship on a personal and organizational level. Collaborative therapists help families reorganize and dissolve their perceived problems through a transparent dialogue about inner thoughts with a “not-knowing” stance intended to illicit new meaning through conversation. Collaborative therapy is an approach that avoids a particular theoretical perspective in favor of a client-centered philosophical process.

The techniques include; Dialogical conversation, not Knowing, curiosity, being Public, reflecting teams. Couples and families can develop rigid patterns of interaction based on powerful emotional experiences that hinder