Are you a family therapist who uses Structural Family Therapy, looking for fun structural family therapy activities to use in your next family therapy session? Then these fun structural family therapy activities for assessment and joining have all the inspiration you need for your next family therapy session!
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What is Structural Family Therapy?
Structural Family Therapy (SFT), developed by Salvador Minuchin in the 1960s, is a systemic therapeutic approach that focuses on the organization, rules, and patterns within a family system. Its primary aim is to help families develop healthier structures and dynamics that promote better functioning and more connected relationships.
Unlike individual therapy, SFT sees the family as a whole unit and believes that issues arise not just from individuals but from the interactions between family members. By addressing the family’s structure, organization around a given problem, and repetitive patterns of interaction, SFT helps families establish more functional relationships and improve the well-being of everyone involved.
When to Use Structural Family Therapy Activities
If you are a family therapist or providing family therapy, Structural Family Therapy can be a great option for helping promote lasting change within a family system.
SFT identifies the potential inciting events that led to problems within the family structure, such as unclear roles or unhealthy patterns, and introduces interventions to promote more functional structure and patterns of interaction.
Structural family therapy does not view the child as the problem, As a structural family therapist, you instead contextualize the child’s problematic behavior as a symptom or an alarm bell of sorts, calling out a larger systemic issue. By addressing the family system (e.g., parenting practices, boundaries, coalitions, etc. ), structural family therapy can help resolve the underlying issues.
Issues Treated with SFT
SFT works well to address:
- Generational Patterns of Conflict
- Trouble with Boundaries
- Estrangement
- Parent-child conflict
- Marital problems
- Behavioral issues in children
- Blended family challenges
- Enmeshment or disengagement within families
- Role confusion or reversed hierarchies.
Benefits of Structural Family Therapy
Structural Family Therapy offers lots of advantages when it comes to family work, particularly for families struggling with negative interactional patterns, communication issues, and/or issues with boundaries and roles. By focusing on family structure, boundaries, and patterns of interaction, SFT promotes connection, clarity, and lasting positive change for families.
Here are a few of the benefits. Structural Family Therapy can:
- Improve bonds & relationships
- Support emotional connection, and core attachment needs (love, belonging, significance, etc.)
- Reduce family conflict, including parent-child conflict
- Improve parenting skills
- Empower parents in leadership roles
- Support development and independence
- Improve communication between family members
- Clarify roles and rules
- Support blended families navigate transitions and clarifying roles
- Improve concerning behavior in children
Joining With Clients
Joining is a foundational component of SFT. It’s where you connect with the family, build rapport, and establish trust. By creating a safe and collaborative environment, you ensure that the family feels understood and willing to engage in the therapeutic process.
Joining is not just about social engagement and light conversation. It’s an intentional effort to ensure the family members feel seen, understood, and honored in their efforts. As a structural family therapist, you “accommodate” to the family system so that you are invited or admitted into the system. The family allows you to witness (and take part in to some extent) their interactions, culture, and story.
Joining involves energy, attitudes, and actions that signal to the family that you understand and accept them as both individuals and as a family system.
Assessment in Structural Family Therapy
Assessment involves observing and analyzing things like the family’s patterns of interaction, boundaries, roles, rules, and hierarchy. Activities designed to assess family systems can help you to identify the issues and dynamics impacting the family’s ability to functioning and determine what areas need targeted intervention.
Combining assessment with fun, interactive activities can not only enhance the process but establish emotional safety, especially for families who may be nervous or hesitant about therapy.
Below are three fun Structural Family Therapy activities that simultaneously foster joining and provide valuable assessment information for treatment.
4 Fun Structural Family Therapy Activities for Assessment
I have used these structural family therapy activities for assessment personally, and have recommended to therapists I’ve supervised in the past. These activities not only help you gather assessment info, but they help promote emotional safety in the therapy room. Additionally, these fun structural family therapy activities are experiential and immersive. Similar to therapeutic games, these interactive structural family therapy activities engage more parts of the brain and body than talk therapy alone.
1. The Family Sculpt
OVERVIEW
The Family Sculpture is a (usually non-verbal) activity where family members use physical positioning to represent their roles, relationships, and other dynamics within the family. This visual and interactive method highlights dynamics that may be difficult to articulate with words alone.
HOW TO DO IT
Ask family members to take turns positioning their family members in various ways to demonstrate how they see their family’s structure and interaction. For example, a parent might stand close to one child but far from another. Or a child might stand on a chair cowering over a parent who’s sitting on the floor.
Observe the proximity, gesture, body language, and eye contact between members.
Afterward, invite the family to discuss what they noticed and how they felt about each sculpture.
WHY IT WORKS
Family sculpting encourages family members to engage in a non-threatening and creative way. It provides a visual snapshot of family alliances, boundaries, and emotional distance, giving the therapist valuable insights into the family’s structure.
2. The Family Shield
OVERVIEW
This activity helps family members express their individual and shared identities by designing a “family shield” that represents their strengths, values, and rituals.
HOW TO DO IT
Provide art supplies such as paper, markers, and crayons. You can either give them each their own shield to complete, or divide the shield into sections, with members designing one section each. Provide prompts like:
- “What are your family’s greatest strengths?”
- “What values are most important to your family?”
- “What challenges do you face together?”
- “What kinds of things do you like to do together?”
Each member can contribute to the shield by drawing or writing in specific sections using lines, colors, and shapes.
WHY IT WORKS
The Family Shield activity encourages self-expression, collaboration, and family bonding. Additionally, it helps the family feel connected and supported by the therapist. The shield reveals individual perspectives on the family’s identity, strengths, and areas of conflict, providing insight into relationships and dynamics. This activity is especially helpful for families who have experienced disconnect in the past, blended families, and foster/adoptive families.
3. Create a Country
OVERVIEW
In this collaborative exercise, the family designs an imaginary country, defining its rules, values, structure, and culture. This playful activity fosters teamwork while giving the therapist insight into the family’s view of their structure, their communication patterns, and problem-solving skills.
HOW TO DO IT
Offer prompts to guide the activity, such as:
- “What is your country called?”
- “What are the top five rules or laws of your country?”
- “What might your country flag look like?”
- “Who’s in charge?”
- “Where does everyone live?”
Encourage the family to draw a flag, create a national motto, or even describe their country’s culture. Observe how decisions are made, who leads the discussion, and how disagreements are resolved. Ask them what the experience was like and what they noticed about what they created together. Explore how they can apply the same ideas to their family system.
WHY IT WORKS
It introduces an element of fun and creativity, reducing resistance and building rapport. It highlights family values, leadership roles, and conflict resolution strategies, providing the therapist with a wealth of information about the family dynamics.
4. The Fish Bowl Drawing Activity
OVERVIEW
In this fun drawing activity, family members draw their family in an underwater setting, depicting each family member as a sea creature, real or made-up. This creative structural family therapy assessment activity offers an alternative to the structural map. It can help you assess how each family member views the household/family structure. It also provides a space to explore relationships, roles, behavioral patterns, and boundaries through the use of symbolic imagery.
HOW TO DO IT
Offer blank sheets of paper and drawing materials to each family member. Deliver the following directions:
- “Draw your family in an underwater setting, depicting each family member as a sea creature, either real or made-up.”
- “You can choose to do a fish bowl, aquarium, or any other underwater setting.”
- “Include the family members that feel important to include.”
Encourage the family to draw whatever comes to mind. When everyone is finished, ask them to take turns presenting their drawings. You can either set a rule that no one can interrupt while the drawings are presented, or conversely, you can allow for feedback, questions, and comments to glean more assessment information based on the interactions you observe.
Once each family member has presented, it’s your turn to assess through processing comments and questions. Here are a few to get you started:
- “Tell me everything you know about sharks. And based on that, in what ways is your Dad like a shark?”
- “I noticed that you named your mom an octopus. She is off to the side and lighter than the rest. Did you notice that too?”
- “Tell more about why you chose a crab for your brother.”
- “You called this creature a pufferfish. I wonder what that pufferfish is feeling and why it might be feeling that way. Can you relate to any of that?”
WHY IT WORKS
This creative drawing activity can tap into subconscious experiences, impressions, and symbolic communication around how each family member sees their family structure, relationships, and roles. It’s an accessible way facilitate structural mapping that gathers multiple perspectives in one or two sessions, including the perspectives of younger family members, too.
And the processing exploration you can do around the creature information, placement, proximity, color, shape, size, etc. can offer a wealth of assessment information. Plus, it’s a fun bonding activity that fosters joining with you and connection between them.
In Conclusion
Playful and engaging structural family therapy activities like the Family Sculpture, the Family Shield, the Create a Country activity, and the Fishbowl Drawing make the initial phases of Structural Family Therapy more approachable and effective. They provide you with opportunities to join with families in a meaningful way while gathering insights into their interactions, roles, and relationships.
By integrating these fun assessment tools into sessions, you can foster trust and gain a deeper understanding of the family’s unique dynamics. Don’t hesitate to adapt these activities to fit the needs of your clients, and remember that creativity and being able to adapt to the needs of the client are key to creating a solid therapeutic alliance.
What are your favorite family therapy activities for joining and assessment? Share them in the comments below!
Art Therapy Disclaimer:
Introducing art into your work with clients can be powerful. There are so many benefits to art therapy, it’s easy to see why the field is growing. While it is possible to include art in your practice if you aren’t a professional art therapist, it’s important to ensure you have training on art therapy and how to use art effectively.
It’s also important that you are clear with your clients that you are not an art therapist, and you are not providing art therapy.
Though there are ways to incorporate art into your practice, the general practice of art therapy by untrained or non-credentialed art therapists is not recommended. According to the American Art Therapy Association, “art therapy can only be practiced by an individual who possesses the required training, certification, and/or state licensure. Bona fide art therapy is beyond the scope of practice of non-art therapists.”
Additionally, some art therapy directives can be self-guided, but they work best under the guidance of a trained art therapist.
About the Clients Referenced in this Post
Every vignette, case study, or reference to a client has been adapted and adjusted for legal and ethical publication. Names, demographics, and other identifying information have all been changed in order to protect client identity, confidentiality, and privacy. The information presented in each example is for educational purposes only, intended to illustrate a concept, technique, or activity.
About the Artwork in this Post
All artwork used in this post was created by me. The images serve as a reference for the reader. Most of the artwork I feature in blog posts is art renderings inspired by client artwork, or “response art”. Response art in this context means that when I created the art piece, I reflected on my work with a specific client, and then created the artwork with that experience in mind. All efforts were made to comply with HIPAA law and confidentiality and privacy of all clients.
References
- Jones, A. (1998). 104 activities that build : self-esteem, teamwork, communication, anger management, self-discovery and coping skills. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA78195386
- Nichols, M. P. (2010). “The Essentials of Structural Family Therapy.” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.
- Structural family therapy. (n.d.). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/structural-family-therapy
