You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The Mental Health Study Center of the National Institute of Mental Health, concerned with 'understanding a given family's style of interacting with one another', instituted sessions with three complete families simultaneously for one-and-one-half-hour periods, twelve in all. The children of these families were at first male adolescent underachievers without the presence of their siblings; later the children were delinquents. The investigators asked themselves, 'What is the structure in which therapy occurs here, and of what exactly does that therapy consist?'.
During these sessions, when it became apparent that the underachievers were passively resisting their parents, while the delinquents were bullying theirs, these same parents showed the same reactions toward the group therapist. The underachievers' parents elicited a feeling in the therapist that he should take all responsibility for the treatment, while the delinquents' parents aroused anxiety that if pushed too hard they might walk out.
A therapeutic milieu was developed by 1, establishing rules, 2, encouraging individual participation, 3, supporting shared concerns, 4, redirecting discussions often by summarizing and interpreting, challenging validity of attitudes, and direct guidance. Introspective attitudes were fostered by translating abstract issues to specific family situations; paraphrasing expressions of emotions and directing them to their real target; encouraging the deeper understanding of such expressions and suggesting, when indicated, the substitution of other relationships.