Instructions - Case Study Outline Week 7 Case Study: Solution Focused / Narrative 1. Read the following case study. Week 7 Case Study Madison Madison gears up for another day in sixth grade. The trans
Week 7: Overview
Social Construction Models
The idea that an absolute truth can never be known may seem discouraging, yet liberating. There is liberty in this statement, according to the Social Construction Model, because it focuses on each client's subjective truth, instead of confining each person's perspective to one objective truth. Solution-focused, collaborative, and narrative therapies fall under the social construction model umbrella.
This week’s lecture will cover the readings on Solution-Focused Therapy, Collaborative Therapy, and Narrative Therapy. These postmodern social construction therapies focus on each client’s perceptions of reality. They reject the notion that there is one truth for everyone. This outlook examines the assumptions that clients make about their problems. The counselor’s goal is to collaboratively help clients to find new meaning. Therefore, the counselor refrains from directing the family with preconceived ideas. So, instead of focusing on the origins of the problems, the counselor works together with the family to find realistic solutions. You will review a video on Collaborative Helping. You will also be asked to respond to three discussion questions, and post a peer response for two different questions, as well as complete a writing activity. Remember to properly integrate and cite the readings in your work and include a reference list.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this week, you will:
Be able to apply the concepts of Solution-Focused Therapy
Be able to recognize the use of of Collaborative Therapy
Be able to identify the concepts and application of Narrative Therapy
Readings
Please read the following for this week as well as All Week 7 Online Course Materials:
Goldenberg, H., & Goldenberg, I. (2013): Chapters 13 and 14
Media: Here are instructions on how to access this video.
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Collaborative Helping: A Practice Framework for Family-Centered Services, Part 1Links to an external site. (2011)Links to an external site.
Week 7: Lecture
Solution-Focused Therapy
Solution-focused brief therapy is somewhat unique in that it focuses on the actual change, as opposed to why the family developed the problem. Solution-focused therapists assist the family in developing solutions as opposed to exploring why the problem exists. Also, what makes solution-focused brief therapy a bit unique is that the family is invited to join the counselor in a therapeutic conversation regarding the issues that they are experiencing. Emphasis is placed on discussing possible solutions to the problem rather than re-visiting the facts surrounding the issue or problem.
Solution-focused brief therapists believe that clients know what they need to do in order to solve their problems. The therapist’s role is therefore to help the family create a new use for the knowledge that they have, for instance developing solutions to the family’s problems. The solution-focused therapist may use miracle questions, exception-finding questions, and scaling questions in their work with families. Solution-focused therapists encourage clients to notice times when the problem behavior does not occur.
De Castor and Guterman developed a five-stage model for conducting solution focused therapy, to consist of co-constructing a problem and goal, identifying exceptions, assigning tasks, evaluating effectiveness, and reevaluating problems and goals. Additionally, solution-focused family therapists work under the assumptions that resistance is not a useful concept, change is inevitable, only a small change is necessary, clients have the strengths and resources to change, problems are unsuccessful attempts to resolve difficulties, you do not need to know a great deal about the problem in order to solve it, and there are multiple perspectives.
Collaborative Therapy emphasizes language and communication. If you think of yourself as a conversational partner who creates meaning with clients as they discuss the issue, then your view point would be aligned with that of a collaborative therapist. Collaborative therapists also linguistically construct issues in the present, they do not offer intervention strategies, nor do they consider themselves experts regarding the family’s issues. So, if you do not see the significance in therapeutic techniques or the counselor maintaining control or remaining objective and detached from the process, then again your approach would be synonymous with that of a collaborative therapist.
The Collaborative Therapy Model is centered more on attitude than technique. Collaborative Therapists work with family members through meaningful conversations for the purpose of creating new meanings and ultimately dissolving the problem. This process requires active, respectful, and responsive listening. The therapist must also be willing to empathize with the client’s concerns in order to ask intentional questions that permit the client to completely share her or his story.
If you have ever wished that you could re-write a particular circumstance in your life, then you have been thinking like a narrative therapist. Narrative therapists help clients to free themselves of problem stories by creating new stories. Narrative therapists believe that families often create negative stories about their lives and in order to produce change, they must explore how these stories impact their perspective of their problems, in order to create new stories.
Narrative therapists view their role as one of a collaborative partner with the client. They also acknowledge the unique stories and cultural background that each client brings to therapy. Narrative therapists help clients become aware of narratives that have limited their lives. This re-authoring process thus aids the client in finding alternative life stories. It is important to mention that while clients re-author their lives, narrative therapists do not.
The goal of narrative family therapy is to change the family’s assumption that the person experiencing the problem is in fact the problem. Narrative therapists believe that families with problems present stories that reflect these problems as well as the feelings of frustration that are often associated with them. The goal of the narrative therapist is therefore to help the family to identify facts about themselves, involving success, that counter the problem story.
Week 7: Activities
ReadingsPlease read the following for this week as well as All Week 7 Online Course Materials:
Goldenberg, H., & Goldenberg, I. (2013): Chapters 13 and 14
PowerPoint Handout: Chapter 13 & 14 pdf
Narrative Therapy Exerpt from Dr. Bitter (Links to an external site.)
Michael White Trauma ITSP - terapia narrativa (subtitulado) (Links to an external site.)
Please complete the following assignments:
Week 7 Case Study Discussion - Solution Focused/Narrative
Read the following case study.
Week 7 Case Study: Solution Focused / Narrative
Week 7 Case Study Madison
Madison gears up for another day in sixth grade. The transition to middle school has been difficult one for her. Since the beginning of the school year, she has felt so isolated from her peers, even those who were her friends in fifth grade. Although her mom, Sarah, often asks how things are going, Madison hesitates to let her know just how hard things have been at school recently. Brooke, Traci, and Caroline are certainly the most popular girls at the school, and even Madison’s best friend, Laura, seem to have fallen under their spell. In fifth grade, she and Laura did everything together, and now Madison hardly sees her even outside of school.
At lunch today, Madison decides to approach Laura, who is sitting with Brooke, Traci and Caroline. She asks Laura, “Can I sit here?” Before Laura can respond, Brooke tells Madison, “We don’t sit with losers,” Traci and Caroline start to laugh, and Traci says, “Yeah, Madison, go join the other losers over there,” which makes Caroline laugh even harder. Fighting back tears, Madison walks away, throws her food in the trash, and runs out of the cafeteria. By the time she gets home from school, someone has posted a video on her Facebook page, showing her crying in the hallway outside of the lunchroom, with the caption, “cry baby loser.”
When Sarah gets home from work, she can immediately tell that something is wrong with Madison, yet Madison won’t tell her what happened. Sarah hates to do this, but she decides to check out Madison’s Facebook page. There, she finds the video and is horrified. When she approaches Madison about it, Madison begs her mom not to do anything, because she believes it will only make it worse for her at school. Sarah believes she must do something, but when does she begin. What is the role of the Parent, the role of the school and the role of the student in the scenario?
Use a Narrative or Solution Focus approach in assessing the bullying and developing a treatment plan which includes the parents, school and students.
Complete the Case Study Outline.
1. Background information and Socio-cultural considerations.
2. Assessment (assessment methods must be consistent with the theory you have read for this week’s assignments, video clips or theory mentioned in the vignette).
3. Treatment plans, must list 3 treatment goals that follow logical problem solving.
4. Interventions (Interventions must be consistent from theory/ theories you are using for the case study) include collateral stakeholders as part of the interventions as needed.
5. Discuss future research that may be needed.
Chapter 13& 14
Goldenberg, I, Stanton,M & Goldenberg, H. (2017). Family Therapy: An Overview (9th Edition). Cengage Learning.
Example of the assignment
Week 7 Case Study
Background information and Socio-cultural considerations.
This vignette is focused on Madison, a female in sixth grade. The vignette provides information of her mother, Sarah, as well as her previous best friend Laura and three popular girls from her school named Brooke, Traci, and Caroline. The vignette does not provide any other identifying demographic or cultural information.
Assessment (assessment methods must be consistent with the theory you have read for this week’s assignments, video clips or theory mentioned in the vignette).
According to our Goldenberg (2017) text, assessment in solution focused therapy focuses on the solution to the client’s presenting problem, rather than dwelling on the problem itself. In this case, the problem for Madison is being outcasted from her previously best friend by the popular girls in school. For her mother, it is the urge to do something to help her daughter. For the school, it is the responsibility to prevent bullying.
Treatment plans, must list 3 treatment goals that follow logical problem solving.
Following the solution focused approach, the first treatment goal would be to identify what Madison sees as the solution to this problem. Treatment planning in the solution focused model are based on the five stages of: Co-constructing a problem and goal, identifying and amplifying exceptions, assigning tasks, evaluating effectiveness, and reevaluating problems and goals (Goldenberg, Stanton, & Goldenberg, 2017).
Interventions (Interventions must be consistent from theory/ theories you are using for the case study) include collateral stakeholders as part of the interventions as needed.
Specific interventions from solution focused therapy are based on these five goals. As the vignette stated, she does not believe that her mother’s action would be a suitable solution but rather a detriment. This solution may look like inviting Laura over or to an event to gain her trust back. If not, finding a new group of friends through a shared interest hobby may be suitable. Having the school confront the individual who posted the video and remove it may also be a solution.
Discuss future research that may be needed.
Future research that may be needed is to what extent is focusing on the problem in solution focused therapy effective? For instance, what percentage or factor of time spent in therapy would be ideal to focus on the problem itself in solution focused therapy to allow for identification of a solution as well as catharsis?
References
Goldenberg, I., Stanton, M., & Goldenberg, H. (2017). Family therapy: an overview. Boston: Cengage Learning.
