The specific participation of the child in family therapy

If your mother were an animal, what animal would she be? Creating play-stories in family therapy: the animal attribution story-telling technique (AASTT)

In this article, I describe a therapeutic story-telling technique that requires family members to attribute an animal counterpart to each member of the family and then tell a short story--with a beginning, a middle, and an end--about the animal protagonists. The technique was applied in private practice to numerous families with a presenting problem of one or more children referred by the local school system labeled as suffering from conduct disorders and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This story-telling technique offers a predictable structure to sessions, thus facilitating the engagement and participation of children of all ages in the therapeutic process. The animal name attribution to family members creates a fun, nonthreatening atmosphere that helps to promote the description of personality traits and interpersonal relationships through the various animal counterparts. The ensuing story allows each family member to describe situations, feelings, wishes, and more as belonging to the animals and not to themselves. This is an active process. It enables the expression of conflictual feelings, the clarification of erroneous beliefs about the self and others, and the externalization of wishes, fears, aggressive feelings, and fantasies within a safe context. The combined use of animal selves and creative narrative takes into consideration children's developmental capabilities and utilizes their spontaneous pleasure in the world of make-believe to minimize anxiety. In adults, this combination helps to overcome resistance and uncovers issues that are otherwise seldom verbalized. Further, play-stories facilitate dialogue between family members and provide working metaphors that later become an integral part of the therapy sessions and of family lore.

The theory, structure, and techniques for the inclusion of children in family therapy: a literature review

Many barriers prevent therapists from including young children in family therapy, despite the theoretical belief that every family member should be present. Although there is a wealth of literature describing how to include children, the information has not been compiled in a way that is easily accessible to therapists. In this article, we report the findings of an exhaustive and systematic literature review of 64 publications, published between 1972 and 1999, related to including children in family therapy. The purpose of this article is to offer therapists a succinct compilation of theoretical, structural, and practical aspects as well as a comprehensive listing of specific techniques for including children in family therapy.

Influences on the inclusion of children in family therapy

This study examined factors that influence family therapists to include children in or exclude them from therapy sessions. We hypothesized that therapist comfort, child problem type (internalizing vs. externalizing), family composition (one- vs. two-parent families), and presenting problem (child-oriented problem vs. adult-oriented problem) affect therapists' inclusion of children. A survey of clinical members of AAMFT found that half of the therapists excluded children on the basis of their comfort and that those who felt more comfortable were more likely to include children in sessions. Therapists included children more frequently in cases of an internalizing vs. an externalizing child, more with single-parent than two-parent families, and more often when the presenting problem focused on a child than on an adult. Implications of the findings are discussed.