Jay Haley: Study for CA MFT Licensing Exam

- One of the founding figures of brief and family therapy in general and of the strategic model of psychotherapy
- Gregory Bateson, Milton Erickson, and Salvador Minuchin

- Any type of therapy where the therapist initiates what happens during therapy and designs a particular approach for each problem
- A name for the types of therapy where the therapist takes responsibility for directly influencing people

• - Identify solvable problems
• - Set goals
• - Design interventions to achieve those goals
• - Examine the responses
• - Examine the outcome of the therapy

Getting patients to take responsibility for their actions and to take a stand in the therapeutic relationship

1) Cybernetic (runaway positive feedback loops)
2) Structural (flawed family hierarchies)
3) Functional (one member develops symptoms to control others)

Power struggles

Incongruous hierarchies, where a child uses symptoms to change the behavior of the parent

Problem-solvers and solution-finders

- Replicating family interactions and conversations
- Prompting and engaging participants with provocative questions and discussions
- Engineering the situation so that participants come to realize and understand the socially impaired interactions taking place

- Strategic; structural
- By looking beyond simple dyadic relationships and exploring his interest in triangular, intergenerational relationships, or "perverse triangles."

1) Social stage
2) Problem stage
2) Interaction stage

Everyone is greeted and spoken to in order to make everyone feel more relaxed and less defensive

- Introduce yourself and repeat what you know, then speak to each person and get their opinions and ideas about the problem
- Haley engages the father first, and observes all the family members interactions to uncover hidden triangles

- Haley has members talk about differing perspectives on the problem
- He can observe then the family interactions around the problem
- By asking what they have tried before, he gains information and also underscores the family's need of his help
- Haley may end a first session with a simple directive, not advice, but a directive. Haley may prescribe some ordeal, such that the cost of maintaining the symptom is more than the benefit of the symptom.

Restoring power to the parents; creating new and pleasurable interactions for the parent and child