NURS 6650- Family Therapy Paper

The Assignment In a 2- to 3-page paper, address the following: Summarize the key points of both experiential family therapy and narrative family therapy. Compare experiential family therapy to narrative family therapy, noting the strengths and weakness of each. Provide a description of a family that you think experiential family therapy would be appropriate, explain why, and justify your response using the Learning Resources. Note: The College of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The sample paper provided by the Walden Writing Center provides examples of those required elements (available at http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/57.htm). All papers submitted must use this formatting. Part 2: Family Genogram Develop a genogram for the client family you selected. The genogram should extend back at least three generations (parents, grandparents, and great grandparents).NURS 6650- Family Therapy Paper

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Psychotherapy with Groups and Families

There are many and varied psychotherapy approaches. Many of these approaches are grounded on research and based on evidence while others rely on anecdotal evidence and theory. Making the best use of these therapies involves matching them to cases and situations (Nichols & Davis, 2020). The present paper analyzes the use of experiential and narrative family therapy.

Summarize the key points of both experiential family therapy and narrative family therapy.

Experiential family therapy and narrative family therapy are unique professional approaches applied in psychotherapy targeted at family units. These approaches are intended to address the behavioral, emotional and mental issues affecting the family members and with implications for the whole family, especially with regards to interactions and relationships. Psychotherapists must receive professional training and be certified before being allowed to apply either one of the two approaches. Through using these approaches, psychotherapists are able to establish professional relationships with family units with a focus on promoting the growth and development of the family members while eliminating the maladaptive behaviors. The interactions applied in the two psychotherapy approaches can be challenging, intense, dynamic, provocative or humbling with emphasis on generating open and honest conversations. In addition, the two approaches are routinely subjected to scientific scrutiny to improve their efficacy and outcomes (Lebow, Chambers & Breunlin, 2019). In this respect, the two psychotherapy approaches are applied by trained and certified psychotherapist, make use of conversations, and are targeted at addressing the mental health concerns facing the whole family as a unit. NURS 6650- Family Therapy Paper

Compare experiential family therapy to narrative family therapy, noting the strengths and weakness of each.

As earlier indicated, experiential and narrative family therapies are targeted at addressing the mental health concerns that face the whole family as a unit. However, the two therapy approaches are distinctively dissimilar. On one hand, the experiential family therapy seeks to help the family members to grow and develop while gaining individual autonomy and independence. It adopts a spontaneous style that leverages the interaction between family members to have authentic conversations and open disclosures that engender a sense of interconnection and belonging. It has the objective of helping the family members to have positive relationships that encourage each other to develop individual identities. It goal is to turn the family into a healthy unit with the individual family members acting as support systems for the others. It makes use of empathy and interactions to evaluate and direct family dynamics towards achieving the desired change (Prochaska & Norcross, 2013).

On the other hand, narrative family therapy seeks to help the family members in developing meaning for their interactions and experiences. This approach encourages the individual family members to use their unique skills in understanding the problems they are experiencing and developing solutions. It acknowledges that every experience (whether good or bad) has value for the family, and can be evaluated as a tool that pushes growth and development forward. Through evaluating experiences and giving them meaning, the family members conduct self-evaluation and develop a better understanding of themselves. In addition, it helps to develop the understanding that each family member is unique and goes through different experiences that influence personal growth and development (Sharf, 2015).NURS 6650- Family Therapy Paper

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Provide a description of a family that you think experiential family therapy would be appropriate, explain why, and justify your response.

The family presented for the case is the Andrews family. It has four family members who include a father, mother, one daughter, and one son. The daughter is married and has two sons. The family members are atheists and pacifists. However, the son become disillusioned with the pacifist ideals after experiencing much bullying in school. Against the advice of his family members and strong opposition, the son (Tony) decided against attending college after high school. Instead, he enlisted in the army. He served in the army for seven years and was honorably discharged. Having been discharged from the army, Tony moved back into the family home. He was diagnosed with PTSD following his experiences in the army. Having moved back home, Tony become largely non-communicative and an alcoholic who would steal portable items from the house and sell them to earn cash used to fund his alcohol purchases. In addition, he occasionally steals from his sister’s house with the latest incident involving him stealing and pawning a game console that was pawned. The alcoholism and stealing are placing a strain on the relationship between the family members. They are threatening to evict tony from the home but are aware that he needs their support in order to recover from the PTSD and alcoholism.NURS 6650- Family Therapy Paper

Experiential family therapy would be appropriate for this family since it would help Tony towards achieving development and growth that help him to address the PTSD and alcoholism. The therapy helps the family to support each other in developing a sense of belonging and interconnection that encourage each other to achieve individuation. This therapy approach improves functionality in the family thereby ensuring that Tony receives adequate support as he achieves sobriety from the alcoholism and recovers from the PTSD (Prochaska & Norcross, 2013). In addition, the therapy approach helps the family members to take responsibility for personal actions, improve their self-esteems, identify obstacles to achieving personal goals, and experience success as a team. Also, it would encourage the family members to engage in healthy and productive activities to diverse Tony’s attention away from the maladaptive behaviors (Neukrug, 2015).

Family genogram

References

Lebow, J., Chambers, A., & Breunlin, D. (2019). Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer International Publishing.

Neukrug, E. (2015). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Counseling and Psychotherapy. SAGE Publications.

Nichols, M., & Davis, S. (2020). The essentials of family therapy (7th ed.). Pearson.

Prochaska, J., & Norcross, J. (2013). Systems of Psychotherapy: A Transtheoretical Analysis. Cengage Learning.

Sharf, R. (2015). Theories of Psychotherapy & Counseling: Concepts and Cases (6th ed.). Cengage Learning. NURS 6650- Family Therapy Paper