Structural Family Therapy focuses on the restructuring of needs (of the family) to help all individuals in the family (to adjust). Key terms in this approach to family therapy are boundaries, subsystems (parents vs children for example), enmeshment (no boundaries), disengaged (very little communication or contact), and mimesis (taking on the family language – words, body language). The role of the therapist with this theory is active, involved, and very engaged, as a stage director. The goals of therapy are symptom reduction (back down to the individual but starts with the whole picture of the family), changes to the patterns/restructuring of family organization, and changing the dysfunctional patterns within the family. The therapist is curious about what is important to the family (tracking importance) and the therapist may direct enactments: a tool used to act out situations where the therapist directs family members to talk or interact together in order to observe and modify problematic transactions. We bring the actual dynamics of relationships to life in the room during the session. The therapist also may use reframing which is another tool that helps to redefine the problem and reframe the issue as a systemic issue. In Structural Family Therapy, the therapist works extra to strengthen the parental unit as this is what holds the family together in a healthy way. This approach to family therapy is an active approach where change happens through directives that alter communication patterns.
