The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy In The Family Crucible, a unique way of looking at family therapy is used. This approach probably would not be something that would be done by therapist now. The more that we study systemic approaches the less I believe that there are any individual problems. With that being said there is a long reach that effects of parenting has on a child. * . Describe how Carolyn and David fit in terms of authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive forms of parenting. * Authoritative parents set clear and consistent limits for children. They are flexible but firm, whichs leads to children who are responsible, cooperative, and self reliant. * There are almost as many …show more content…

Barring this, the authors’ posed a series of questions that they strongly believed the family was thinking. Did Don really wonder “will the family undertake changing the whole family without me?” Therefore, I did not agree with the aspect of “we know what you’re thinking”. I felt that this was too deep of an approach. The basic underlining problem of the family was that they did not know how to communicate and could not establish their own structure to allow their family system to operate in harmony.

Another aspect of the text that I thought was fundamental and provided me with a different outlook on approaching a perceived problem was the way in which the two therapists began the therapy. The family entered into therapy by believing that Claudia was their entire problem and that her actions alone were the root of their dilemma. However, she was just the perceived problem. And in order for the parents to see that Claudia was only the perceived problem the therapists reversed the blame that the parents had projected on to their daughter. I believe this technique was most attractive. Through the art of helping the family to view their situation differently, the therapists initiated a second-order change allowing the family to step outside their norm and see that their failure in marriage was affecting their parenting. Thus,