Family Therapy Concepts: Maxson family

Family Therapy Concepts: Application of Theories

1. List the members of the Maxson family and estimate their ages. Briefly describe each of their roles in the family system.
2. Describe the important extra-familial members and their significance to the Maxson family.
3. Describe centrifugal and centripetal tendencies impacting the Maxson family.
4. Discuss significant horizontal and vertical stressors influencing the Maxson family.
5. Describe important cultural influences on the Maxson family.
6. Describe and discuss a couple of important Maxson family rules.
7. Are the concepts of pseudo mutuality or pseudo independence relevant to the Maxson family? If so, describe them.
8. Think of a problem impacting on the Maxson family. How do you understand the origins of this problem in systems terms? What part do the various relationship with the family play in the development, maintenance, and perpetuation of the problem?
9. Describe the Maxson family in terms of adaptability and cohesion?
10. What person (or persons) have the most power in the Maxson family? Discuss any changes to the distribution of power as the play progresses.
11. Describe instances of enmeshed and disengaged relationships in the Maxson family?
12. If a structural family therapist were to restructure the family system in the Maxson family, what would be important changes s/he seek, including changes in rules, alignments, distribution of power, hierarchy, subsystems, dyads, triads, boundaries, etc. Explain.
13. Describe the level of self-differentiation in each of the members of the Maxson family. Place each of the members on the scale of (0-100) and explain your scores.
14. Describe examples of emotional cutoff in the Maxson family.
15. Discuss the Maxson parents’ choice of each other as partners from an intergenerational point of view (i.e., we select partners with a similar level of differentiation, despite an appearance to the contrary).
16. Describe examples of overadequate-underadequate reciprocity in the Maxson family (i.e. where one partner takes on most or even all family responsibilities, while the other plays the counterpoint role of being under responsible).

22 pages