The Use of Brief Strategic Family Therapy

Interactions between family members because of the adolescent's issues, often prevent the family from working together (Szapocznik et al., 2012). The Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) approach sees families as the strongest force in the development of children and youth (Szapocznik et al., 2012). By saying this, it targets families with youth that are partaking in high-risk and problematic behaviours as families with these issues, tend to indirectly uphold these issues (Szapocznik et al., 2012). The goal of this approach is therefore to change the patterns in the interactions between the family that currently encourage and foster problematic behaviour. BSFT is effective in decreasing youth problems and assists in creating functioning families (Szapocznik et al., 2012). After treatment has ended, BSFT brings changes to family patterns and interactions and therefore changes the way each family member interacts with each other (Szapocznik et al., 2012).

Theory

BSFT is a short-term family-treatment model that spans approximately 12 sessions. It was developed to work with youth with behavioural issues, such as high-risk and delinquent behaviours (Szapocznik et al., 2012). This approach was created as an integrated model that is a combination of structural and strategic family therapy techniques that can address systemic and relational interactions regarding adolescent behavioural issues (Szapocznik et al., 2012). The combined work of Salvador Minuchin, Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes brought structural and strategic approaches to family therapy and led the treatment to be problem-focused, planful and practical. This allowed there to be a general focus on identifying and creating the changes that are necessary to restructure and foster adolescent issues (Szapocznik et al., 2012). This approach comes with the uniqueness that it also focuses on diagnosing the family patterns and assists in restructuring the interactions with the family that are associated with the adolescent's behaviour issues (Szapocznik et al., 2012). In BSFT it is often seen that the challenges that families are having are derived from the same issues that are maintaining the issues in the adolescent's behaviour. Because of this, the engagement and interventions created by Minuchin, Haley and Madanes have revolutionized the field of family therapy (Szapocznik et al., 2012).

The BSFT approach has three central aspects of theory, which are system, structure/patterns of interaction, and strategy. The first aspect of the construct is the system, which is the basic element of the modern family system theory (Szapocznik et al., 2013). This aspect of the theory entails that the family is a system and therefore their behaviours and patterns affect each other, which leads to the family system being interdependent. In saying this, the adolescent's behaviour is believed to reflect a larger issue within the family interaction (Szapocznik et al., 2013).

In regards to structure/patterns of interaction, this plays a role in the repetitive patterns of interactions that are within a family system. The structure of a maladaptive family is the reoccurring interactions between the family members that create insufficient and harmful responses throughout the system (Szapocznik et al., 2013).

Lastly, the strategy is the final construct of the BSFT theory. This is created by using interventions that are practical, problem-focused and thoughtful (Szapocznik et al., 2013). While putting all the central aspects of the theory together, the goal behind the theory is to find the repetitive maladaptive patterns within the family interactions, while strengthening the adaptive patterns in the interactions. This results in the alleviation of the youth’s behavioural issues and creates a healthy family environment for each family member to flourish in their interactions (Szapocznik et al., 2013).

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