What is strategic family therapy?
Strategic family therapy treats symptoms as products of repeating interactions and has the therapist change those cycles directly through planned directives and tasks. Rather than digging into origins, it asks what keeps the problem going now. It took shape in the 1970s, influenced by Bateson's double bind research and Milton Erickson's hypnotherapy.
- View
- Symptoms serve functions in relationships
- Focus
- Current repeating cycles
- Tools
- Direct and paradoxical directives
- Length
- Brief, often about ten sessions
Three strands
| Model | Key figures | Core idea |
|---|---|---|
| MRI brief therapy | Weakland, Watzlawick, Fisch | Attempted solutions maintain problems |
| Haley | Jay Haley | Hierarchy, power, directives |
| Madanes | Cloé Madanes | Protective function, pretending |
Weakland and colleagues (1974) held that the family's efforts to fix a problem often sustain it. Haley (1976) stressed correcting incongruous hierarchies, as when a child holds more power than parents.
Techniques
- Direct directives: "This week, Dad handles homework."
- Paradoxical interventions: prescribing the symptom, restraining change.
- Pretend techniques (Madanes): the child pretends to have the symptom and parents pretend to help, turning it into play.
- Ordeal therapy (Haley): each time the symptom occurs, the client performs a beneficial but more troublesome task.
When a child gets a stomachache before every school day, what is the stomachache doing? Strategic therapists ask what a symptom does in the family. If parents stop fighting only when the child is ill, the symptom is protecting the family.
Versus structural therapy
Structural family therapy maps boundaries and subsystems and restructures them in session; strategic therapy changes behavior through tasks carried out outside. Both value hierarchy. The Milan approach and solution-focused therapy later branched from this tradition.
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Criticisms
It has been criticized as therapist-centered, manipulative and neglectful of emotion and insight.
Frequently asked questions
- Who founded it?
- No single founder, but Jay Haley popularized the name.
- Why "strategic"?
- The therapist plans a specific strategy for each problem and takes responsibility for it.
- How long does it last?
- Usually briefly; the MRI model capped treatment at about ten sessions.
References
- Haley, J. (1976). Problem-solving therapy. Jossey-Bass.
- Madanes, C. (1981). Strategic family therapy. Jossey-Bass.
- Weakland, J. H., Fisch, R., Watzlawick, P., & Bodin, A. M. (1974). Brief therapy: Focused problem resolution. Family Process, 13(2), 141–168.