What Are the Goals of Brief Strategic Family Therapy?
In BSFT, whenever possible, preserving the family is desirable. While family preservation is important, two goals must be set: to eliminate or reduce the adolescent’s use of drugs and associated problem behaviors, known as “symptom focus,” and to change the family interactions that are associated with the adolescent’s drug abuse, known as “system focus.” An example of the latter occurs when families direct their negative feelings toward the drug-abusing youth. The parents’ negativity toward the adolescent directly affects his or her drug abuse, and the adolescent’s drug abuse increases the parents’ negativity. At the family systems level, the counselor intervenes to change the way family members act toward each other (i.e., patterns of interaction). This will prompt family members to speak and act in ways that promote more positive family interaction, which, in turn, will make it possible for the adolescent to reduce his or her drug abuse and other problematic behaviors. What Are the M
