1. Family Therapy
Chapter 10

2. Importance of Family
The family environment is frequently cited as significantly contributing to criminality:
Inadequate parent-child attachments
Improper socialization
Inadequate parenting skills
Dysfunctional styles of interaction
Family therapy holds that individuals cannot be understood apart from their interactions with group, social, and cultural forces in their environments.
Correctional Counseling and Rehabilitation, 7th ed. (LexisNexis Matthew Bender, 2009)
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

3. History and Overview of Family Therapy
The earliest approaches to family therapy were problem-centered efforts to cure illnesses.
It is currently viewed as a way to address the problems that result from the manner in which individuals perceive and manage their relationships.
There are two different schools of thought:
Psychodynamic
System-based technologies
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

4. Psychodynamic Family Therapy
The most important focus in psychoanalytic family therapy is on object relations or the influence of early interactions with parents regarding current relationships.
Psychoanalytic family therapists seek to uncover, clarify, and interpret unconscious material from the past.
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

5. Communications Family Therapy
In this strategy, therapists typically work from a systems perspective, in which they cannot understand family interactions until they understand the family’s role patterns and stability.
The goals of communication therapy require therapists to take deliberate actions to modify poor patterns of communication and interaction.
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

6. Structural Family Therapy
The goal of this therapy is to alter the patterns of familial subsystems and their boundaries.
“Structure” refers to the stable and enduring interactions that occur in the family setting.
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

7. Behavioral and Social Learning Models
This approach supports the idea that because behavior is learned, it can be unlearned.
Functional Family Therapy has as its goal the improvement of family functioning through:
Fostering reciprocity among family members
Developing effective communication skills
Teaching family members how to effectively deal with circumstances that bring about delinquent, dysfunctional, or abusive behaviors
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

8. Multisystemic Treatment
This strategy emphasizes the importance of assessing and treating child and adolescent conduct disorders by addressing a broad spectrum of family problems.
This approach seeks to be flexible and recognizes that different combinations of risk factors are at work with different families.
Multisystemic treatments follow this sequence:
Initial assessment
Treatment plan development
Goals of treatment
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.

9. Family Therapy and Criminal Justice Applications
In community-based and institutional correctional settings, family therapy is likely to be part of an overall treatment plan.
Family therapy is used to treat:
Child abuse
Spouse abuse
Substance abuse
Delinquent behavior
Adjustment to incarceration (absence of provider)
Reintegration after incarceration
©2010 Elsevier, Inc.