Therapeutic Relationships by Butler John F.;Butler Jack;

Author:Butler, John F.;Butler, Jack;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated
Published: 2017-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusions and General Observations

The seeds of coaching as it is known today were sown in the Family Study Project. The first finding about the challenge of symbiosis necessitated the development of a method to effectively manage this problem. If symbiosis was a problem with two or three dyads, the difficultly increased exponentially when entire families were admitted. One reason smaller family units were recruited, that is, parents, symptomatic children, and nonsymptomatic siblings, was to make this problem more manageable. Symbiosis was viewed as a family process.

The staff–patient groups, later known as family psychotherapy, were developed as a means to manage the intensity of the family unit and reflected the theoretical move from the individual to the concept of the family as an emotional unit. It was the problem of managing symbiosis that forced a search for a solution, and the concept of the family as a unit provided the answer. A last conclusion is that the Family Study Project demonstrated that it was not necessary to foster a transference relationship to work effectively with the project families.

Finally, some general observations concerning the documents: First, the “family as an emotional unit” concept and family psychotherapy with a new therapeutic role were not brief experiments; these concepts were utilized for the last three years of the project. Second, there is minimal use of psychiatric terminology in the papers. Bowen sought to describe complex family processes in straightforward language. Third, while there was frequent mention of an outpatient program, so far I have found no papers on this subject. The outpatients, however, did offer a useful comparison group with families with similar problems but less intensity. Fourth, from the onset the Family Study Project was conceptually/theoretically driven. For example, there was initially a theoretical conceptualization of the problem, that is, a reciprocal intense mother–daughter attachment that produced symptoms in both. Later this theoretical assumption was revised to view psychosis as more than a problem within just one individual. Fifth, the papers offer valuable insights about symbiosis in families, a process that is alive and well in families today. Last, the basic elements of coaching today were present in the Family Study Project. The coach works to address their emotional functioning, lets the family be responsible for problems, works to make emotional contact with family members, and makes observations about family process.

Now that I have reviewed Murray Bowen’s outlining of his new family systems psychotherapy theory and guidance for clinical practice, I will delve a bit more deeply in the next chapter into the fundamental concept of the family as an emotional unit.

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