Writing About Experiential Family Therapy

Experiential family therapy
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Institutional Affiliation
Introduction
Experiential family therapy was born out of the need to consider humanistic psychology, which emphasizes the need for immediate and now experience. It became famous for utilizing therapy techniques such as individual and group therapies, role-playing, family drawing, sculpturing as a family and confrontations among others.
Evolution of the model
The experiential family therapy traces its origin from family therapists Carl Whitaker and Virginia Satir. Carl led the discovery of the treatment believing that to bring change into families and elicit flexibility; people have to be actively involved in the process by opening up. In 1955, after he and his team resigned from Emory University, they came up with experiential therapy and publicized it all over the country. After his death, Satir took over the mantle by emphasizing the need for communication and emotional experiencing during treatment, which made experiential treatment an integral part of family treatment.
The basic model
The premise of experiential family therapy is that the primary cause of problems in families is the suppression of emotions. Many families impose this on their children by confusing between feelings that helps one to expresses themselves and the instrumental emotions. Consequently, children suppress their feelings and become emotionless and anxious. However, the therapy works to change all this by focusing mainly on getting family members in touch with their true feelings, whether happiness, anger, fear or anxieties and share them to attract change.
Normal family development
The experiential family therapy considers an ideal family as a place where family members share experiences, they encourage experimentation, parents are not controlling, and children enjoy support to express their ...