Strategic family therapy

Strategic family therapy seeks to address specific problems using theoretical and clinical principles that have the potential of rapid effectiveness and successful outcome; especially with difficult, entrenched problems that have failed to improve in previous treatment efforts. As a result of it's potential effectiveness and problem focused orientation, family therapy can often be completed in a shorter time frame than other therapy modalities. It is one of the major models of both family and brief psychotherapy. Jay Haley of the The Strategic Family Therapy Center says that it is known as Strategic Therapy because "it is a therapy where the therapist initiates what happens during therapy, designs a specific approach for each person's presenting problem, and where the therapist takes responsibility for directly influencing people." The concept of "brief therapy" is a misnomer and often misunderstood, as Brief Strategic Therapy is not suggesting a time limitation or a restricted number of sessions, but referring to the tendency for therapy to end up being briefer as a result of the potential effectiveness of the model to achieve successful goal attainment rapidly.

The concept was inspired by the work of Milton Erickson, MD and Don Jackson, MD and has been associated with (but not limited to) the work of Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes (founders of Family Therapy Institute of Washington, DC in 1976), the Brief Therapy Team at the Mental Research Institute (John Weakland, Dick Fisch, and Paul Watzlawick), the Milan School of Family Therapy, and the work of Giorgio Nardone.

The theory of strategic family therapy evolved from many of the gains in early family therapy models that were made by Milton Erickson and Don Jackson, with many other influences from such therapists as Salvador Minuchin, Gregory Bateson, and other prominent early family therapists. Strategic family therapy grew along with, and out of, other theories, most importantly, structural family therapy in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, and later at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center. Many early family therapy theories were growing and influencing each other between the late 1950s and late 1970s. At first glance these theories don’t seem to have direct connections, but many of the influential therapists of the time worked with each other and there was a natural give and take between these theories.

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