Family Groups

Structural Family Therapy is a strength-based outcome oriented treatment modality based on
ecosystem principles. Our behaviors are a function of our relations with others. The structural
therapist focuses on what is taking place among people, rather than on individual psyches. The
family is the primary context where we develop ourselves as we interact with spouses, parents,
children and other family members. The family is in constant transformation, adapting to an
every changing social environment. The family’s structure consists of recurrent patterns of
interaction that its members develop over time, as they accommodate to each other. A well-
functioning family is not defined by the absence of stress or conflict, but by how effectively it
handles them as it responds to the developing needs of its members and the changing conditions
in its environment. The job of the structural family therapist is to locate and mobilize strengths,
helping the family outgrow constraining patterns of interaction that impeded the actualization of
its own resources. Strategic Family Therapy is a family-based intervention aimed at preventing and treating childand adolescent (ages 8 – 17) behavior problems including mild substance abuse. It is based on the fundamental assumption that adaptive family interactions play a pivotal role in protecting
children from negative influences, and that maladaptive family interaction can contribute to the
evolution of behavior problems and consequently is a primary target for intervention.
The goal of Strategic Family Therapy is to improve the youth’s behavior problems by improving
family interactions that are presumed to be directly related to the child’s symptoms, thus

reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors for adolescent drug abuse and other
conduct problems.