OVERVIEW

Structural Family Therapy: The Four Step Assessment Model is organized by Therapist Development Center (TDC).

Course Overview:
This course will help mental health clinicians gain an understanding of Structural Family Therapy and how it provides a road map to assist clinicians in conceptualizing how individual problems are maintained by family interactional patterns. With the Structural Family Therapy roadmap, clinicians will be able to join with families to empower family members to explore alternative ways of relating in order to elevate the identified client’s symptoms. This course will start off with an overview of the theory and belief system behind Structural Family Therapy mapping. The course will also introduce the four-step assessment model and the interventions that can be utilized to accomplish each step. This assessment model provides a framework for identifying the barriers that a family is experiencing in reaching their goals and provides guidelines to assist families in recognizing and utilizing their inner resources in order that they can accomplish their goals. Lastly, three clinical vignettes will be presented for the participant to answer questions utilizing the Structural Family Therapy model and then the participant will be able to listen to the answers in the audio recording.

The instructor is Sharon Greene, LCSW. Ms. Greene has been adjunct faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and California State University Northridge in the Graduate Social Work Departments for the past 5 years. She is currently the training director at Providence Saint John’s Child and Family Development Center which is a nonprofit that provides mental health services to children and their families. She has been providing mental health services to children and their families for over 15 years and studied Structural Family Therapy at the Minuchin Center in New York City. She not only practices Structural Family Therapy in her private practice but has also trained many clinicians in Structural Family Therapy over the past ten years. Her passion for doing family therapy truly is revealed in her training through her dynamic and inspiring presentation.

Course Objectives:
As a result of participating in this training, participants will be able to:
• Articulate the two stages of Family Therapy
• Articulate the theory of Structural Family Therapy
• Define Family Hierarchy, Boundaries, and Subsystems
• Understand how to take into account Culture in the Structural Family Therapy Model
• Identify the 4 steps to the assessment model.
• Integrate the four-step assessment model into the client’s treatment evidenced by naming three structural family therapy techniques.

Course Outlines:
Structural Family Therapy (3 hours)
• Individual vs. Family Therapy
• History of Structural Family Therapy
• Three Constructs: Structure, Subsystems, Boundaries
• Structural Family Therapy Belief System
• Goals of Structural Family Therapy
• Use of Self & Culture
• Overview of 4 Step Assessment Model
• Review of three clinical vignettes