Narrative Therapy With Individuals and Families: A Comparison - Research Paper Example

Within this process, clients are evaluated against established standards, and their symptoms are examined with respect to established principles of psychopathology (Lange, Schaap, & Widenfelt, 1993). Contemporary family therapists, on the other hand, prefer as many family members in the room, usually alongside friends and community members. Nevertheless, it is not the number of people in the room that is important—it is about how the family therapist evaluates the individuals in the room. What’s important is addressing mutual influence, interdependence, series of interaction, and transactions (Lange et al., 1993). It is recognizing the family therapist’s subjectivity, evaluating it, identifying it, predicting its effect on the therapy session, and applying it for the sake of the patient’s wellbeing.

It is acquiring the skill to identify how a problem influences the family and how the family reinforces or sustains the problem. And recently, it also involves listening to the narratives in families, and how each individual takes part in forming their own realities and narratives about these realities (Yap & Tan, 2011). Basically, family therapists aim to examine the purpose and meaning of transactions and interactions, and take part in mechanisms that strengthen the types of solutions that families and individuals desire.

Family therapists do not refute the significance of individuals in families. Family and individual therapy diverges as regards the therapy’s emphasis or the sessions’ focus, but certain sessions are required due to issues of a particular member of the family. At times family therapy sessions could also assist family members in understanding their influence on the person’s problems (Lange et al., 1993). There are also numerous instances wherein family therapy is not addressing the needs or problems of an individual.

At times, this form of therapy is centered on resolving the problems the whole family confronts or the issues of several of its members. Remarkably, an individual may take part in family and individual therapy simultaneously. For instance, a person may attend individual therapy to concentrate just on his/her issues. He could then take part in family therapy at the same time so as to focus on his/her issues from a family viewpoint (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2011). In essence, the differences between individual therapy and family therapy revolve around three areas, namely, the perspective of generating therapeutic change, formation of symptoms, and development of personality.

Individual therapy derives its perspectives of these areas from the notion that they are influenced by the individual’s active intrapsychic functioning (Lange et al., 1993). On the other hand, family therapy derives its perspectives of these areas from the assumption that they are influenced by the functioning of the family unit as a symbiotic transactional system (Morgan et al., 2013). Narrative therapy is completely ideal for work with families and individuals, but its beginnings are rooted in family therapy.

In a family therapy, the narrative technique creates a setting for respect and formation of values. The therapist leads family members through the narrative in a manner that helps them isolate the issue from the individual (Laitila et al., 2005). The ‘externalization’ process creates the environment for producing favorable interactions and