FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY: BRIEF AND EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS FOR KIDS AND TEENS
Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D
Summary:
Not every childhood or adolescent problem is biological, and not every cure is a drug! In this presentation, you will learn the top ten reasons why kids have problems and the top 20 strategies to help kids resolve inattentiveness, depression, behavioral problems, anxiety, and many other challenges. If you were intrigued by family systems therapy in your graduate program and would like to have further practical training in this brief and effective technique, this presentation is for you. Family therapy does not mean that the entire family has to be present at every session. The talk will address the question of who should be present at the sessions and how to structure them.
Objectives:
1. List the top ten reasons that children have problems.
2. List the top 20 strategies for helping troubled children and teens.
3. Learn how to elicit the family system problem from a child or teenager.
4. Learn how to approach individual psychological problems from a family systems point of view.
Bio:
Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D., is the author of the acclaimed recent book, Pills are not for Preschoolers: A Drug-Free Approach for Troubled Kids and is an entertaining and popular speaker at national and international conferences including three CAMFT annual conferences and several Milton Erickson foundation conferences. A family therapist with more than twenty years of experience, Dr. Wedge is the creator of "strategic child-focused family therapy," a new method for resolving childhood problems by utilizing the power of the family to heal itself. Dr. Wedge's work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Natural Health, People, L. A. Parent, Psychology Today and The Huffington Post.
Synopsis of Family Systems Therapy: Brief and Effective Solutions for Kids and Teens
At our March IE-CAMFT meeting, we had the pleasure of hearing from Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. about brief and effective solutions for children and teens using Family Systems Therapy. Marilyn has over 20 years of experience as a therapist and is the creator of “strategic child-focused family therapy.” She is also the author of the acclaimed recent book “Pills Are Not for Preschoolers: A Drug-free Approach for Troubled Kids,” and has had her work appear in a variety of publishing from the Wall Street Journal to Psychology Today.
Now this is not a secret, especially for those of us working in the mental health field; that as a society, we have a strong tendency to medicinalize children’s “problem” behavior. This tendency has led to some pretty shocking statistics:
· 4 to 5 million children are taking ADHD medications.
· 1 million children are taking “child” bi-polar medications.
· 1 million children are taking antidepressants.
· And lower class children in the system are taking medications four times more than middle to upper class children.
It’s a bit scary to know that this many children are being medicated, when it is often not necessary. According to Marilyn and many other therapists, using family systems therapy, based on the theory of Jay Haley, child’s problem behavior can be solved without them having to take medication. With family systems therapy, the entire family is considered the Identified Patient (IP) rather than just the child being brought in for treatment. According to Jay Haley and family therapists, nothing in nature exists without an environment. Therefore, if you want to change something, you have to examine the entire environment (or system) in which that thing exists, and work towards changing the environment. By changing the environment, the things in the environment will then change to fit that new environment.
The environment or system in which the child exists can include the family, church, school, sports, community, etc. Once one can determine what the underlying problem is in the child’s system, and solve that problem, the child’s problem behavior often ceases to exist. This phenomenon happens because children often tend to develop problems to draw attention away from the problem at hand without ever realizing it. Marilyn gave us several great illustrations of cases she has worked with in which this phenomenon has played out. For the sake of space, only a couple of examples will be shared in this article:
One case was discussed in which a married couple was bringing in their son because he was acting out badly. The parents noticed that every evening when the father would come home, their son would immediately throw tantrums and become very defiant. The parents brought their child in for therapy. One of the first questions that Marilyn asks children when she has them one on one is, “So who are you more worried about? Your Mommy or your Daddy?” (This is a key question Marilyn uses to find out what the real problem in the family is). The child responds by saying that he is more worried about his Mommy because every day when Daddy comes home from work he yells at Mommy, and often ends up making Mommy cry. This child has developed his symptom of “problem” behavior so that his Daddy’s negative attention is directed away from his Mommy and at the child. Marilyn did a few sessions of couple’s therapy for the child’s parents to help them to argue less, especially in front of their son, and their son’s problem behavior ceased.
Another case that was discussed was a married couple bringing in their teenage daughter for therapy because she suddenly started failing school. They claimed that their daughter had always done very well in school, getting mostly A’s, and was on her way to going to a great college when she suddenly began to fail some of her classes. Marilyn sat with the daughter one-on-one and asked, “So who are you more worried about? Your Mom or your Dad?” The teenage girl responded, “Neither.” So Marilyn asked another one of her key questions, “So if your Mom and Dad were not so concerned about you and your grades, what would they be worried about?” The girl responded, “My brother. He is failing out of school, and Mom and Dad are constantly angry with him.” Marilyn asked the parents to bring their son to therapy and she worked primarily with him and the parents.
It was not long before the girl went back to getting her A’s and doing well in school. In this case, the teenage girl began failing to draw the negative attention away from her brother who was constantly being scolded. These two examples may seem too good to be true, like there was some kind of magic that took place, but they are 100% real, and only two of the many cases in which this phenomenon has taken place.
You see, the child often acts as a metaphor for the family. According to Haley, “If you have a violent child, you have parents who are hostile towards each other.” The child often acts as the family therapist unconsciously by developing a problem so the other family members can focus on the child’s problem rather than their problems. Children can sense when the family (which is their stability) is out of homeostasis, and does what they can to put the family back in a state of homeostasis because that means that they are stable. When we can solve the problem in the environment, or system, we help the family to that state of homeostasis…without having to medicate our children.
Family Systems Therapy is a traditional type of therapy that has been used for decades to solve mental health problems and improve family cohesiveness. As a society, we have somehow gotten away from this traditional type of therapy and have begun to medicinalize our children’s problem behavior. Hearing from Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. was a great reminder of how to effectively treat children without using pills, and that as therapists, we often need to see past the “identified patient” and problem at hand and understand how entire environment is functioning.
For more information about our fantastic speaker Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D., the type of family therapy she provides, or her great books, please visit www.MarilynWedgePhD.com. Thank you again for your intriguing presentation Marilyn!