Section III- – Short Essays

A family comes in for counseling. The mother is upset and starts off by telling the therapist all the things her teenage son is doing wrong (failing in school, on the computer or texting all hours of the nights, shutting her out…). “We have tried everything, he never listens, the only thing that seems to work is when his dad yells at him and threatens to take his car away. Then he will do his homework for a while, but as soon as we let up on him, he goes back to locking himself in the room with his phone and computer. He is lazy and disrespectful. I am already a failure as a wife, now I am a failure as a mother and my son hates me.” The son sits with his arms folded and his head down and mumbles, “Right mom, everything is always my fault. Whatever. I told you I didn’t want to come here” The father looks at the counselor and says, “Can you help us? I just want us to get along like we used to”

Use this scenario to describe and 3 separate example of a counseling session using 3 different therapeutic approaches. The word bank is to get your started, you should use additional terms and concepts from the text, handouts, class discussions and book reports on “parenting” and marriage as they pertain to the chosen therapy.

Describe how a therapist might use Solution – Focused Therapy with this family. Use words from the word bank in a context that gives the definition and the application of the words.

Visitor, complainant, customer, miracle question, goal setting, exceptions, coping questions, scaling question, compliments, collaborate, summary,

Describe how a therapist might use Cognitive –Behavioral Family Therapy with this family. Use words from the word bank in a context that gives the definition and the application of the words.

Reinforces /reinforcement, punishment, social exchange, behavioral exchange, aversive control, cognitive distortions/illogical beliefs, shaping, token economics, contingency contracting, contingency management, quid pro qui, schema, triggers, parent training, personalization, magnification

Describe how a therapist might use Narrative Family Therapy with this family. Use words from the word bank in a context that gives the definition and the application of the words.

Hermeneutic, externalize / externalizing conversations, problem-saturated stories, unique outcomes, deconstruct, reconstruct, map the influence, relative influence question, re-authoring,