Dynamics and Theories of the Family

This weeks class was especially interesting for me.  Throughout this year I have been studying the well known family therapist, Salvador Minuchin.  Minuchin played a very crucial role in the development of family systems therapy.  I greatly admire his work and find his personality to be very interesting and quite humorous.  As I read of family systems theory and as we went over it this last week I have begun to notice that my family has been so much more important in the development of who I am today than I could have ever have imagined in my adolescents.  I would go even further to say that Family Systems theory has helped me to recognize the family to be one of the most complex institutions that we humans are involved in.

If you are reading this and you do not know what family systems theory is or you are still having a hard time understanding its significance, allow me to quote from Salvador Minuchin from his book Families and Family Therapy. 

 

       "Instead of focusing on the individual, the therapist [focuses] on the person within his family. ...Structural family therapy, [is] a body of theory and techniques that approaches the individual in his or [her] social context. ...Man's [and woman's] experience is determined by...[their] interaction with...[their] environment."

     To further describe family systems theory, Minuchin quotes Ortega y Gasset when he said, "I am myself plus my circumstances, and if I do not save it, I cannot save myself.  This sector of circumstantial reality forms the other half of my person; only through it can I integrate and be fully myself."

• With that quote in mind, consider these questions.  Who would you be without the influence of your parents or siblings?  Would you be the same?  How much of their behavior has contributed to your behavior today?