The Family Crucible Essay Research Paper The

The Family Crucible Essay, Research Paper The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy In The Family Crucible, the authors provide a unique approach to family therapy that is almost never considered in our society today. Here Augustus Napier and Carl Whitaker have succeeded in writing a serious book that illustrates the different aspects of marriage and family therapy through an emotion packed real life drama. In reading the text, I felt as if I was the “fly-on-the-wall” watching as two caring and skillful therapists worked with a seriously dysfunctional family. Through the artful skills of listening, supporting, cajoling, and teasing, these two therapists motivated a family to embark on a journey that would eventually allow them to help themselves. I

felt as if the journey was the true crucible. A crucible that allowed the family to see the fundamental cause of their problems in a way that also allowed them to find a solution to dealing with the basic problems that continually trouble a majority of today?s families. The authors? approach to helping the Brice family was probably the most instrumental and awakening aspect of the text. The technique of using two therapists to help a family through therapy is unique and one in which I have never heard of. I thought at first that this may seem as if the therapists were ganging up on the family. However as I continued through the book, I thought that it was always the family who outnumbered the therapists. Also, it was interesting that the two-therapist approach allowed one to get

close and personal to the issue at hand and the other to stay professional and evaluate the situation from an outsider?s point of view. In these situations, I felt as if the therapist had a therapist that proved to be useful when issues got really elevated and one therapist got pulled too far into the troubled system it which they were trying to explore. Thus, the two-therapist method allowed me to see a new way in which to confront the fact that when one becomes too close to the work they cannot see the complete overall picture. In reading Chapter 1, The Question of Structure, I believe the authors? were instrumental in providing a clear example of what the family really needed and searched for. The family needed to realize that in order for the family to make a real change they

need to utilize a structure that included the entire family. They also needed to know that the therapists were completely serious and in control. Their stance was something I could completely agree upon. However, I do not agree that the family was trying to question their authority or provide a strategy to defeat the new system in which they were beginning to enter. Barring this, the authors? posed a series of questions that they strongly believed the family was thinking. Did Don really wonder ?will the family undertake changing the whole family without me?? Therefore, I did not agree with the aspect of ?we know what you?re thinking?. I felt that this was too deep of an approach. The basic underlining problem of the family was that they did not know how to communicate and could

not establish their own structure to allow their family system to operate in harmony. Another aspect of the text that I thought was fundamental and provided me with a different outlook on approaching a perceived problem was the way in which the two therapists began the therapy. The family entered into therapy by believing that Claudia was their entire problem and that her actions alone were the root of their dilemma. However, she was just the perceived problem. And in order for the parents to see that Claudia was only the perceived problem the therapists reversed the blame that the parents had projected on to their daughter. I believe this technique was most attractive. Through the art of helping the family to view their situation differently, the therapists initiated a