In ESFT, treatment is guided by an assessment of how the NIP and the family’s relational structure maintains or exacerbates the child’s presenting problems. This course focuses on family structure. Family structure, a concept introduced more than 50 years ago by Salvador Minuchin, provides a framework for describing how a family organizes its relationships to meet the basic functions of being a family. This course describes family relationships along the three primary structural dimensions of family organization: subsystem boundaries, hierarchy and power, and closeness distance. Excerpts from two films are shown and discussed to help participants sharpen observations of family interactions, translate these observations into a structural family map, and demonstrate how family structure shapes treatment.
The webinars in this course are comprised of edited excerpts from a live streaming training provided to a group of FBMHS therapists in PA the Spring of 2021.
This is a Beginning Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.
Course Objectives
As a result of completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Explain the nature of family structure and family mapping.
- Recognize boundaries, closeness-distance, and hierarchy in family interactions.
- Describe how family structure can be used to organize treatment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Visit our Self-Paced, Online Continuing Education Policies & FAQs for additional information regarding the CFBT online learning center, accommodations for disabilities, reporting problems with the course, instructions for viewing webinars, etc.