6 Ways your Strategic Family Therapist is thinking about you when you’re not looking…

Wednesday August 9 2023. Because I’m passionate about local community work, I’m meeting with CSO today to explore working with their families in the Berkshires.

Cloe Madanes is a giant among marriage and family therapy thought leaders. Cloe is one of the thought leaders behind one of my favorite models of family therapy; Strategic Family Therapy.

She has authored eight books that are classics in the field: Strategic Family Therapy; Behind the One-Way Mirror; Sex, Love and Violence; The Violence of Men; The Secret Meaning of Money; The Therapist as Humanist, Social Activist and Systemic Thinker; Relationship Breakthrough and Changing Relationships.

Strategic Family Therapy is a family therapy model which is designed for families that are seeking a solution to a pressing family problem. Behavioral issues with children are often a pressing concern.

But Strategic Family Therapy also recognizes that this acting out behavior is often a reaction to a family of origin (FOO) in which a child feels powerless. The philosophy of Strategic Family Therapy is to identify the underlying source of dysfunction, and to create a treatment plan to better manage the family dynamic.

 What is Strategic Family Therapy?

Strategic Family Therapy (STF) assumes a highly structured treatment method over aimless, ad hoc methods. With Strategic Family Therapy, families learn how to plan, take action, and monitor their results. STF is most often used to diagnosis and address toxic, internecine family conflicts.

• A good Strategic Family Therapist will carefully note how family members engage, and they won’t shy away from provocative lines of inquiry.

A good STF therapist will value direct engagement, and offer provocative questions during open discussions. During these sessions, problems will present themselves. The therapist does this intentionally so that everyone involved can realize and understand the issues.

6 Ways your family therapist sees you when you’re not looking…

Cloe Madanes in 1991, described 6 ways a therapist will think about the problems you’re bringing into therapy:

• Where are You in Your Family Life Cycle? it’s common knowledge that new parents have a completely differnt set of stressors than empty nesters. SFT heavily contemplates what struggles is this family facing in their current life cycle phase, and how are they making decisions pertinent to that phase?

• Involuntary vs. Voluntary. STF doesn’t tend to hold your hand and empathize when you describe your behavior as “involuntary.” Fighting, bickering, and worrying behaviors, for example, are seen as choices.

• Agency vs. Helplessness. Strategic Family Therapist like to ask “how do symptoms express issues of power or helplessness? Is there a hidden agenda to the presenting problem?”

• Concrete vs. Metaphor? A skilled STF therapist will ask “is this symptom straightforward? Or is it a metaphor of another, perhaps hidden family problem?”

• Pecking order of Power vs. Flat Family Hierarchy? A good Strategic Family Therapist will always pay special attention to the structure of the family hierarchy. Do the parents inhabit their leadership role in the family with comfort, or chaos?

• Angry vs. Loving. Personally, I’m becoming increasingly concerned with how we are ever more inclined to resort to anger as an organizing principle. STF therapists are perpetually asking the question.. “is this behavior motivated by love or anger?”

Family Hierarchy, Power, and Attachment

SFT practitioners pay close attention to the family hierarchy. Who has power? Who has influence.. in what areas?

• Strategic Family Therapists appreciate that how the family describes decisional power, and how power is actually applied can be two completely perceptions.

• A good therapist will not accept a self-report wholesale. Instead they observe, who wields power in the session?

The essential goal of good family therapy is to offer humans a different way of behaving, which will hold out the opportunity for a corrective emotional experience during times of relational ambivalence.

Cloe maintains that all problems brought into therapy as arising from an existential dilemma between violence and love. That is, to find ways to love that do not harm, invade, oppress, or dominate.

Most problem relationships have complicated enactments of power and influence, and the therapist values what humans do over what they say.

A good Strategic Family Therapist is profoundly goal oriented they might:

• Seek to Correct the Family Hierarchy Either Up or Down as Needed.

• Change the level of engagement by a slacker parent, partner, or kiddo.

• Solving the epidemic of family estrangement.

• Changing Who Does What, Who Helps and How. How does Sh*t Get Done, and how Can It Run Smoother?

• Learning how to Make Amends, Expressing Empathy, acceptance, and Forgiveness.

• Promoting the Notion of Family Unity.

The main goal of Strategic Family Therapy is to promote behavioral and attitudinal change that can alter how humans assess their intimate family experiences.

Straightforward and direct

Strategic Family Therapy has been profoundly shaped by ideas of what healthy attachment looks like.

• Good SFT focuses on expanding the family’s capacity to love and nurture human bonds, instead of resorting to tactics which resort to power and control.

I think it’s fair to say that Attachment Science has permeated all models of couple and family therapy, but the shift in Strategic Family Therapy is noteworthy. STF emphasizes behavioral control through noticing, and nurturing their way into a healthier family hierarchy.

A nurturing parent can still listen, lead, and enforce behavioral norms with their kids. Good family therapy will show them how.

RESEARCH and Thought leadership by Cloe Madanes:

Madanes, C., BEHING THE ONE-WAY MIRROR, Advances in the Practice of Strategic Therapy, Revised Edition, 2018, Phoenix, Arizona: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, Inc.

“Changing Relationships,” Madanes, C., Zeig & Tucker, New York, 2018.

The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People, Madanes, C. PSYCHOTHERAPY NETWORKER. Washington D.C.: November/December 2013. Also published in AlterNet.org, November 18, 2013.

“RELATIONSHIP BREAKTHROUGH”, Madanes, Rodale, 2009.

“THE THERAPIST AS HUMANIST, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, AND SYSTEMIC THINKER – THE SELECTED PAPERS OF CLOÉ MADANES”, Madanes, C., Zeig and Tucker, New York, 2006.

“Remembering Our Heritage,” Madanes, C., PSYCHOTHERAPY NETWORKER, November-December, 2004.

“Leadership in Times of Crisis at Addiction Treatment Centers,” Madanes, C., COUNSELOR, June 2004, Vol. 5.

“The Godfather Strategy: Finding the Offer a Client Can’t Refuse,” Madanes, C., THE FAMILY NETWORKER, Nov.-Dec., 2000.

“Rebels With a Cause,” Madanes, C., THE FAMILY NETWORKER, July-August, 2000.

“Shame: How To Bring a Sense of Right and Wrong into the Family,” Madanes, C., in Zeig,J.K. (Ed.) THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE THIRD CONFERENCE (pp. 257-267 & 269). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1997.

Discussion (of “The Disorders of the Self and Intimacy: A Developmental Self and Object Relations Approach,” by J.F. Masterson) by C. Madanes. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.), THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE THIRD CONFERENCE (pp. 50-51). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1997.

THE VIOLENCE OF MEN, Madanes, C., with Keim, J. and Smelser, D., Jossey-Bass, San Francisco , 1995.

THE SECRET MEANING OF MONEY, Madanes, C. and Madanes, C., Jossey-Bass, San Francisco , 1994.

“Money and the Family,” Madanes, C. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.) ERICKSONIAN METHODS: THE ESSENCE OF THE STORY (pp. 25-45). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1994.

“Stories of Psychotherapy,” Madanes, C. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.) THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE SECOND CONFERENCE (pp.39-50). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1992.

Discussion (of “The Construction of Clinical ‘Realities’,” by P. Watzlawick), by C. Madanes. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.), THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE SECOND CONFERENCE (pp. 62-63). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1992.

METAPHORS AND PARADOXES, Madanes, C., Jossey-Bass Audio Programs, San Francisco, 1991.

SEX, LOVE AND VIOLENCE, STRATEGIES FOR TRANSFORMATION, Madanes, C., W.W. Norton ,New York , 1990.

“Strategies and Metaphors of Brief Therapy,” Madanes, C. In J.K. Zeig & S.G. Gilligan (Eds.), BRIEF THERAPY: MYTHS, METHODS, AND METAPHORS (pp. 18-35). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1990.

“The Goals of Therapy,” Madanes, C., BRITISH JOURNAL OF FAMILY THERAPY (1989), 11: 35 -45.

“Advances in Strategic Family Therapy,” Madanes, C. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.) THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (pp. 47-55). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1987.

Discussion (of “The Need for Technical Eclecticism: Science, Breadth, Depth, and Specificity,” by A. Lazarus) by C. Madanes. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.) THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (pp. 173-175). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1987.

“Finding a Humorous Alternative,” Madanes, C. In J.K. Zeig (Ed.) ERICKSONIAN PSYCHOTHERAPY, VOL. II; CLINICAL APPLICATIONS (pp. 24-43). New York : Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1985.

BEHIND THE ONE-WAY MIRROR, ADVANCES IN THE PRACTICE OF STRATEGIC THERAPY, Madanes, C., Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco , 1984.

“Family Therapy Training, It’s Entertainment,” Madanes, C. In HANDBOOK OF FAMILY THERAPY TRAINING AND SUPERVISION, H.A. Liddle, J.C. Breunlin and R.C. Schwartz (Eds.) New York :Guilford Press, 1984.

“Strategic Therapy of Schizophrenia,” Madanes, C. In FAMILY THERAPY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA, W. McFarlane (Ed.), New York :Guilford Press, 1983.

“Strategic Family Therapy in the Prevention of Rehospitalization,” Madanes, C. In H. Harbin (Ed.) THE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL AND THE FAMILY. New York : Spectrum Publications, 1982.

STRATEGIC FAMILY THERAPY, Madanes, C., Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco , 1981.

“Family Therapy in the Treatment of Psychosomatic Illness in Childhood and Adolescence,” Madanes, C. In L. Wolberg and M. Aronson (Eds.) GROUP AND FAMILY THERAPY. New York : Brunner/Mazel, 1981

“Marital Therapy when a Symptom is Presented by a Spouse,” Madanes, C. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FAMILY THERAPY, 1980: 2:2: 120-136.

“Protection, Paradox and Pretending,” Madanes, C., FAMILY PROCESS, 1980, 19:73-85.

“The Prevention of Rehospitalization of Adolescents and young Adults,” Madanes, C. FAMILY PROCESS, 1980, 19: 179-191.

“Family Ties of Heroin Addicts,” Madanes, C.; Dukes, J.; and Harbin , H., ARCHIVES OF GENERAL PSYCHIATRY, 1980, 37: 889-894.

“Dimensions of Family Therapy,” Madanes, C., and Haley, J., JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE, Vol. 165, No. 2, August, 1977. Also published in PSYCHIATRIC FOUNDATIONS OF MEDICINE, Editor-in-chief: George U. Balis, M.D., Butterworth Company, 1979.

“Predicting Behavior in an Addict’s Family: A Communicational Approach,” Madanes, C., in DRUG ABUSE, THE HIDDEN DIMENSION, by L. Wurmser, Jason Aronson Press, 1977.

“The Double Bind Hypothesis and the Parents of Schizophrenics,” Sojit, C. Madanes, FAMILY PROCESS, March, 1971.

“Dyadic Interaction in a Double Bind Situation,” Sojit, C. Madanes, FAMILY PROCESS, Vol. 8, No. 2, September, 1961