MFT Family Therapy Models 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Bowenian therapy, a therapist who maintains a non-anxious presence and avoids being triangulated is demonstrating:
- Paradoxical intention
- Differentiation of self (Correct answer)
- Complementary joining
- Positive connotation
Correct answer: Differentiation of self
A differentiated therapist can remain emotionally connected without being pulled into the family's reactive emotional system or triangulation patterns.
Question 2: Which of the following best describes the role of the therapist in Collaborative Language Systems therapy (Harlene Anderson)?
- Expert who redesigns the family's structure
- Blank screen to encourage projection and transference
- Co-creator of meaning through dialogue, taking a 'not-knowing' stance (Correct answer)
- Strategic director who assigns symptom-prescribing tasks
Correct answer: Co-creator of meaning through dialogue, taking a 'not-knowing' stance
In Collaborative Language Systems therapy, the therapist takes a 'not-knowing' position and engages as a conversational partner who co-creates new meanings with clients.
Question 3: A therapist is working with a family in which the adolescent son's school failure appears to stabilize the parents' shaky marriage. This is an example of:
- Parentification
- The identified patient serving a homeostatic function (Correct answer)
- Detriangulation
- Reactive cutoff
Correct answer: The identified patient serving a homeostatic function
When a symptom in one family member regulates tension in the larger system, the symptomatic member is called the 'identified patient' serving a homeostatic function.
Question 4: In the MRI (Mental Research Institute) Brief Therapy model, 'more of the same' refers to:
- Repeating successful therapeutic interventions
- The family's attempted solutions that inadvertently maintain the problem (Correct answer)
- Assigning the same homework across multiple sessions
- Increasing the frequency of sessions when progress stalls
Correct answer: The family's attempted solutions that inadvertently maintain the problem
MRI theorists argued that problems persist because families apply the same failed attempted solutions repeatedly, making the problem worse.
Question 5: Which technique is most associated with the work of Virginia Satir in Experiential Family Therapy?
- Circular questioning
- Family reconstruction (Correct answer)
- Deconstructive questioning
- Positive connotation
Correct answer: Family reconstruction
Family reconstruction is Satir's psychodramatic technique that helps clients re-experience and reinterpret significant family-of-origin events.
Question 6: The 'reflecting team' technique, developed by Tom Andersen, is used in which therapeutic approach?
- Structural Family Therapy
- Strategic Family Therapy
- Collaborative/Narrative approaches (Correct answer)
- Bowenian Therapy
Correct answer: Collaborative/Narrative approaches
The reflecting team is a postmodern technique where a team of observers shares their reflections openly with the family, expanding the possibilities for meaning-making.
Question 7: According to Minuchin's Structural Family Therapy, 'disengagement' refers to a boundary pattern characterized by:
- Overly rigid boundaries resulting in low family involvement and poor communication (Correct answer)
- Diffuse boundaries with excessive togetherness and loss of individual autonomy
- Unclear hierarchical lines between parents and children
- Triangulation of a third party into a dyadic conflict
Correct answer: Overly rigid boundaries resulting in low family involvement and poor communication
Disengaged families have overly rigid boundaries between subsystems, resulting in emotional distance and inadequate support when members are in crisis.
MFT Family Therapy Models 4
In Bowenian therapy, a therapist who maintains a non-anxious presence and avoids being triangulated is demonstrating: