Research Paper on:
Structural Family Therapy - Case Study

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
several subsystems, which include the two children, Marvin, a 4th grader so about 9 years old and his 10-year old sister, Vanessa. Another subsystem is Ted, the father, and Mary,  the stepmother. An internal/external subsystem is the childrens mother, Linda and the children. There is also the paternal grandparents, William and Ethel. Ethel is especially vocal with Ted, mostly negative.  The patterns of communication seem relatively clear. They are, for the most part, conflictive. Ted, to some degree, follows his fathers practice of being the leader of the family  although there is no evidence of him being as dictatorial as his father was. Teds communication pattern with his children is not discussed in the scenario but Marys is. Neither  of the children accept her. Even though Marvin occasionally defends Mary to Vanessa, for the most part, he does not accept her as a parental or authority figure any more  than Vanessa does. This family is so confused and dysfunctional, it would help the structural therapist to actually draw a graphic that represented the different conflicts. Because Marvin is  suddenly acting out and Vanessa is withdrawing, Ted has closed all discussion of having another child with Mary. Ethel has told Mary that she is not good enough and the  children should go live with her and her husband. When Marvin refuses to go with his mother, Linda accuses Mary of poisoning the children against her. The patterns are  dysfunctional with no two people agreeing on anything. The form of communication is negative and disruptive. Boundaries appear to be very diffuse, which means there is very little communication going  on between and among members (Todd, 2005). There are also weak generational boundaries(Todd, 2005), meaning the paternal grandparents and particularly, Teds mother attempts to put obstacles in the path towards