Paradoxical Interventions, Essay Example

Paradoxical interventions are perhaps the most counter-intuitive interventions in therapy: they instruct clients to perform the very thing they are seeking treatment for. Clients who have ‘uncontrollable’ crying spells, for example, may be instructed to cry for an hour every morning at 9. It is counter-intuitive, but the practice of paradoxical interventions is based on the idea that symptoms are essentially adaptations: in essence, the client needs something, and since they cannot or will not obtain it by other means, they create a symptom to get it. The underlying logic of a symptom, therefore, is always to serve some deep-seated need, such as security, the supportive presence of another, and the like. From this follows another idea: if the therapist is to help the client, the first step is instructing the client to actively practice the symptom. Quite often there will be a specific directive: cry for an hour, set an egg timer and worry for ten minutes, sit down and have an anxiety attack for twenty minutes, etc. Very often, as soon as the client masters the knack of doing this, the problem goes away (Becvar & Becvar, 2013; Gehart, 2014, pp. 83-84; Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2008, pp. 277-280; Winek, 2010, pp. 174-177).

I would start by helping Henry, Jean and Jessica to ascertain the ways in which Jessica’s fears and failure to respect authority manifest themselves. Then, for the first strategy, I would tell Jessica to practice being fearful of school every day at, say, eleven in the morning. For ten minutes, she should focus on being afraid of school. This should help her to overcome those fears relatively quickly. For the second strategy, I would try to help Jean and Henry by relabeling: their daughter isn’t afraid of school, she’s simply afraid of not being around her parents. Is it really so bad for her to want to be around her parents all the time, even if it gets in the way of school? By relabeling and emphasizing the positive, I would help them to realize that it simply isn’t at all healthy to allow Jessica’s fears to stand in the way of getting on with life, encouraging them to reform their behavior (Gehart, 2014, pp. 83-84; Winek, 2010, pp. 174-177).

References

Becvar, D. S., & Becvar, R. J. (2013). Family therapy: A systemic integration (8^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Gehart, D. (2014). Mastering competencies in family therapy: A practical approach to theory and clinical case documentation (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Goldenberg, I., & Goldenberg, H. (2013). Family therapy: an overview (8^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooke/Cole Cengage Learning.

Winek, J. L. (2010). Systemic family therapy: From theory to practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.