A Feminist Approach to Family Therapy, Essay Example

Structural family therapy was developed in the 1960s to address problems relating to functioning within a family. The goal of this method is to determine the patterns that frequently occur within a family unit and to reveal the unspoken rules that a family follows that ultimately defines their relationships and interactions. While at first it appeared that this therapy method was primarily used to focus on power issues between generations, it has been further developed to examine other types of family relationships, such as the male/female power imbalances that lead to spousal abuse (Vetere, 2001).

Since structural family therapy has been adapted to benefit families with a variety of problems, it is essential to focus on the family structures that typically exist today. In the 1960s, when structural family therapy was first developed, the typical family was patriarchal and male dominance was generally accepted (Piercy, 1986). However, in the modern era, there are many single mothers, homosexual female mothers, or heterosexual female breadwinners that are considered to be the head of their respective households. Therefore, it would be beneficial to consider how structural family therapy differs between the family groups in which it was originally intended for compared to some of the modern family types that have become more common today.

Although few attempts have been made to utilize structural family therapy to gain a greater understanding of matriarchal family relationships, many researchers have noted that it is essential to integrate a feminist point of view into counseling and psychological research (Hare-Mustin, 2004). These researchers claim that traditionally, family therapy has supported biased and stereotyped sex roles. Without recognizing it, many clinicians perpetuate this perception of women. It is important to begin implementing a change in this point of view in part because the role of women in the family is constantly changing (Will, 1985). It is unfair for one to assume that the wife is a stay at home mother or that this should be her primarily responsibility. In order to provide adequate help to women in this role, it is therefore necessary to start changing attitudes towards women in family therapy sessions.

It is necessary to consider that the treatment of women in the family therapy setting is in part dependent upon the counselor’s preexisting biases. In order to ensure that each woman in therapy is getting the help they deserve, it is essential for the counselor to remain neutral to ensure that these biases do not appear during therapy. Ultimately, these biases could exist either due to cultural or political beliefs and could appear without the counselor being completely aware of their presence.

An important example of cultural bias that can occur is when a counselor is treating a family from a culture that he or she is not familiar with. While it is the counselor’s responsibility to conduct adequate research on these beliefs, research cannot often compensate for experience in the matter. An example of this is when a counselor is having a session with a family from a male-dominated culture, in which the husband makes all of the decisions for the wife. Since this is not culturally acceptable in the United States, it is often difficult for the counselor to determine the set of standards that fair treatment of the females in the family should be defined as. It is important for the counselor to avoid bias in this matter and ensure that all families are held to the same standards, regardless of their cultural beliefs. Many cultures do not hold women’s rights to the same standards that are upheld in the United States, but this does not mean that we should allow ethical injustice.

Just as culture is an important determinant in the success of structural family therapy in relation to gender, the race and religion of participants are important for the same purpose (McGoldrick et al., 2005). There are many variables that impact family dynamics and values and it is necessary to consider how each of these relate to familial gender roles. While it is necessary to consider all of these different factors in a therapy session, it may be possible to group familial interactions according to whether these families are predominantly patriarchal or matriarchal.

Patriarchal and matriarchal families will have opposing strengths and weaknesses, and it is necessary to define what these are according to these broad family structures. Doing so will help researchers gain a greater understanding of the impact of gender role and family relationship patterns, which will allow us to modify structural family therapy to provide a greater extent of benefit to these particular groups. Ideally, a larger study would be able to extend this to the understanding of gender and cultural factors as well, however it is necessary to first characterize these broader relationships before more definitive studies of this sort could take place.

References

Hare-Mustin RT. (2004). A Feminist Approach to Family Therapy. Family Process, 17(2): 181-194.

McGoldrick M, Giordano J, Garcia-Preto N. (2005). Ethnicity and family therapy. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Piercy F. (1986). Family Therapy Sourcebook. New York: Guilford Press.

Vetere, A. (2001). Structural Family Therapy. Child Psychology and Psychiatry Review, 6(3),  136.

Will D. (1985). Integrated Family Therapy. London: Tavistock.