Structural Family Therapy (SFT) is a family therapy designed by Salvador Minuchin, MD focused on improving the health of a family’s system. When a family’s relational structure is not functioning optimally, it can create stress. Improved communication within relationships creates beneficial changes to the family unit and to the individuals that exist within the family.
The SFT model explores your unique family rules, patterns of behavior, and family structure and hierarchies. Your SFT therapist will apply interventions to reorganize family imbalances, establish healthier boundaries, and create improvements within family hierarchies. SFT will also help individual family members with communication and adjust to changes to the family system. Lastly, SFT can assist to increase feelings of parent competence and improve relational dynamics.
Target goals of Structural Family Therapy:
- Managing teenage children and behaviors.
- Blended families.
- Complications from divorce.
- Families affected by illness and or death.
- Families in which a parent suffers from mental health or substance use issues.
- Changes to family dynamics because of major life transitions.
To learn more about this family therapy approach go to https://minuchincenter.org/.
