Reference no: EM133628797

Facilitating change

Facilitating change is what happens when family therapy is viewed as a joint or collaborative process. Techniques are more important to models that see the therapist-as-expert and in charge of making change happen. Collaborative approaches require planning. "Planning can still include what family therapy has called techniques or interventions, but with the family's participation" (Breunlin et al., 1997, p. 292). Two of the most common forms for facilitation of change are enactments and assignment of tasks. Both of these processes work best when the family co-constructs them with the therapist-or at least accepts the rationale for their use. Pinsof et al. (2018) provide multiple planning metaframeworks, including action planning, meaning/emotion planning, biobehavioral planning, family-of-origin planning, internal representation planning, and self-planning (pp. 143-191).

Within the change process, the number of possible outcomes is only limited by the resources available internally and externally to the family. This does not mean, however, that the family practitioner is without a guide for preferred or desired outcomes. In general, the internal parts of family members function best when they are balanced (not polarized) and when the individual experiences personal parts as resources. Being able to think is usually more useful than emotional reactivity; being able to feel is better than not feeling; good contact with others is more rewarding than isolation or self-absorption; and taking reasonable risks in the service of growth and development is more beneficial than stagnation or a retreat into fear.

Furthermore, knowing the goals and purposes for our behaviors, feelings, and interactions tends to give us choices about their use. And understanding the patterns we enact in face-to-face relationships, the ebbs and flows of life, or across generations provide multiple avenues for challenging patterns and the enactment of new possibilities.