What is experiential Symbolic family therapy techniques?

Answer 1

I found the following on www.coping.org/write/C6444/Family%20Therapy.ppt, a power point by James Messina, Ph.D. on March 21, 2009 on Carl Whitaker's Experiential Symbolic Therapy:

-A freewheeling, intuitive, sometimes outrageous approach aiming to: - Unmask pretense, create new meaning, and liberate family members to be themselves - Techniques are secondary to the therapeutic relationship - Pragmatic and atheoretical - Interventions create turmoil and intensify what is going on here and now in the family - Subjective Focus: subjective needs of the family members - Assumption all family members have a right to be themselves - Needs of family may be suppressing rights of the individual - Goal for authenticity, no right or wrong way to be - Pragmatic stance - Theory can be hindrance to clinical work - Often times theory is way for therapist to create distance from clients and control anxiety of the therapist to hide behind - Intensify present experiencing of family members to reach unconscious to understand what is really going on in the family - Process to help tap into: Family secrets just keeping the secrets keeps the family crazy - Facilitate individual autonomy and a sense of belonging in the family - Help individuals achieve more intimacy by increasing their awareness and their experiencing - Encourage members to be themselves by freely expressing what they are thinking and feeling - Support spontaneity, creativity, the ability to play, and the willingness to be "crazy" - Create family turmoil - Coach family how to get out of the turmoil - Highly involved therapist model: must be transparent, take risks, get involved with family in the sessions - Help family member experience the here and now by therapist "BEING WITH" the family - Three phases: engagement (all powerful), involvement (dominant parent figure, adviser) & disentanglement (more personal, less involved)