Psychodynamic Theory in Couples and Family Therapy

Psychodynamic Theory in Couples and Family Therapy

The Basic View of Human Nature Through Psychodynamic Theory in Couple and Family Therapy

Since family therapists may have varying theoretical orientations as their fundamental, their perspectives on human nature can be dramatically different. For example, a family therapist may be psychodynamically oriented and hold that the unconscious plays a crucial role in a person’s life (McLeod, 2020). The psychodynamic theory is a theory championed by Sigmund Freud and other theorists to explain human behavior origins. Generally, the psychodynamic theory entails all the perspectives in psychology that view human functioning based on the interaction of forces and drives within an individual, particularly the unconscious, as well as between structures of personality (Neukrug, 2015). According to Neukrug (2015), psychodynamic theory traces its roots to Sigmund’s psychoanalysis theory. Still, psychodynamic theory entails all the theories that were coined around his ideas, such as Erik Erikson, Anna Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler.

When it comes to human nature, the psychodynamic theory is based on the assumption that the unconscious mind of human beings has mental processes that are not accessible to the consciousness, but that influence the behavior, feelings, and judgment of humans (McLeod, 2020). Freud understood that the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior. This means that the most crucial part of the mind is the unseen part. This theory also assumes that human decisions, motives, and feelings are powerfully influenced by past experiences, which are stored in the unconscious part of the mind. This explains the feelings and behaviors of adults being rooted in childhood experiences, inclusive of psychological troubles. Events that happen during human childhood have a huge impact on shaping adult personalities and lives. These events are stored in the unconscious human mind and may cause problems in adulthood. In short, psychodynamic theory views human nature, whether in family or couples, as determined by the unconscious aspects over which humans have no control.

Key Factors that account for changes in behavior

Research has shown that human behavior is a product of various interrelated factors. These factors can be categorized as individual feelings and thoughts, genetics, social interactions, macro-social environment, social identity, and physical environment. According to Neukrug (2015), some human actions are consciously planned or deliberate, whereas others are determined by non-deliberate processes, as argued by psychodynamic theory. Change is inevitable whether humans want it or not.

According to naturists, human behavior is dictated by their intrinsic genetic composition. Their behavior change happens unwaveringly, neither thwarted nor hastened by environmental interactions (Gregoire & Jungers, 2013). Therefore, their changes in behaviors are prescribed by their genetic composition. However, the nurturists contend otherwise. They believe that environmental interactions are the major forces that determine changes in behavior. The kind of interactions that an individual has with their environment impact their behaviors. The environmental factors may include sociocultural factors such as historical circumstances, socioeconomic, physical, and cultural. The interactions with caregivers, guardians, and parents and interactions with social institutions like community organizations, religious entities, and schools shape an individual’s behavior. Society may dictate that people behave in a certain way in accordance with their culture. Overall, then, theorists in the contemporary world believe that both genetic and environmental interactions work together to affect the behavior of human beings. For instance, a spouse’s excess worry about debts on credit cards may be influenced by the fear of returning to the traumas that they faced when they were a child, which was followed by their father losing his job. This spouse may be traumatized because of the hatred towards poverty, anxiety about the discord between his parents, shame at school for not being able to afford fashionable clothes, self-blame for the parental conflict, and paternal alcoholism (Nielsen, 2017). All these factors are a combination of intrinsic and external environmental factors that may force the individual to adopt a certain kind of behavior, such as worry, spending a lot of time alone, excess alcohol intake, or no alcohol intake, among other behavior change factors that have affected them.

How Intervention Strategies are Designed within Psychodynamic Theory

Some intervention strategies employed by therapists are based on psychodynamic theory. For instance, the renowned experiential family therapist Whitaker Carl argued that counselors need to respect every family’s process of self-actualization and that they should help families look at their ghosts from their past (Neukrug, 2015). He argued that counselors need to be powerful enough to intrude in the family so that they can be part of the family and help them break the roles that have been solidly built over time. In this case, therapists would be viewed as ‘parents’ of the family, permitting the family to make analogies to their original families, which can be discussed going forth.

The psychodynamic family therapist will emphasize on how effective the parents were in helping their children through the stages of development. Due to the underlying assumption, unresolved matters through the stages of development are thought to be reflected in the unconscious ways of the family (Neukrug, 2015). Thus, the psychodynamic family therapist has a main goal, which is to free the members of the family of unconscious constraints so that they can interact with each other as healthy people (Neukrug, 2015).

However, the techniques and strategies employed based on this theory vary. Despite that, the main thrust is to have the family or couple explore their interactions and start comprehending how their behaviors come from unresolved conflicts in their childhood. The conflicts may be multigenerational, such that the parents pass on their skirmishes to their children. It is thus common for therapists to encourage their family or couple clients to bring members of the extended family or grandparents for a session and encourage them to keep on discussing the matters while they are at home with their extended and immediate family members.  This explains why most therapy sessions have the initial phase, including referral intake, family assessment, family treatment plan and formulation, and formal contract Varghese, Pirpekar & Loganathan, 2020). Varghese, Pirpekar & Loganathan (2020) argue that the therapist may be used to the usual one-on-one session of therapy entailing one patient but would be surprised in his strategy by the presence of other family members of the patient with more information than anticipated.

How Psychodynamic Theory Conceptualizes Mental Health

Psychodynamic family therapy focuses on the interpersonal relationships of the family members, assuming that the past experiences of the family setup affect children even in their adulthood. These experiences are stored in the unconscious part of their mind, as described above. Since these experiences may cause an adult to behave in a certain way, such as being anxious about debts, violent, unwilling to interact with others in a social environment, or depressed because their parents fought all the time, psychodynamic therapy is coined in ensuring that the mental health of this individual is addressed in the context of the family as Strong & Busch (2013) argue to be the best strategy. This is because the theory believes that family experiences are the causes of individual mental disorders such as depression and anxiety as well as anti-social behaviors.

Key Factors that contribute to Healthy Family/Couple Relationships

One main factor that contributes to a healthy couple/family relationship is effective communication. Understanding that communication is meant to bring about understanding and not just being heard is vital for a healthy family relationship (Bagga, 2021). Effective communication is based on active listening. According to Bagga (2021), when a family is focused on solving every kind of issue or problem, they are likely to live in peace and understanding and, therefore, happiness. How a family handles its conflicts will determine its happy relationships.

Moreover, emotional engagement is also an important attribute in family/couple relationships. Emotional support has been proven to affect an individual reaction, and according to Sexton & Lebow (2015), emotional support in a family is likely to avoid conflicts and frustrations since a child may not know how to behave or react when they are angry if the parent does not guide them through word and actions. In addition, socioeconomic factors such as financial stability or economic stability in a family are likely to create a firm ground for provision, dependency, a safe living environment, and satisfaction. This gives the family or couple a sense of security and a worry-free life.

A Description of the Skills necessary within Psychodynamic Theory orientation to meet the agreed-upon Goals and Outcomes for Couples and Families

The most important skill within the psychodynamic theoretical orientation to meet the agreed-upon goals and outcomes for a family or a couple is emotional intelligence. A psychodynamic therapist will have to allow opening up of past experiences of the couple or family which have affected the client in adulthood. Therefore, they need to be able to build an important rapport with the family or couple and empathize with them (Varghese, Kirpekar & Loganathan). The therapist needs to know that communication in the therapy session is between the family/couple and themselves.

Moreover, the therapist should be able to use the rapport created to evoke expressions of main conflicts and the ways of coping (Varghese, Kirpekar & Loganathan). Therefore, conflict management skill is important in this case. The skill requires clarification of conflict through the dissolution of misunderstandings, confusions, and barriers, bringing the couple/family to a more accurate or mutual understanding of the problem. The important skill here is the ability of the therapist to lift the hidden intrapersonal conflict to the interpersonal interaction level. In the process of controlling danger and unraveling family issues, the therapist is likely to introduce more images of the family, emotions, and attitudes. This is why emotional intelligence skill is an important skill in this theoretical orientation.

Diplomacy skills are also essential in this case. This is because the psychodynamic therapist works towards entering into and undermining the intensity of shared fear, guilt, and conflict, and this is only accomplished through interpretation and confrontation, according to Varghese, Kirpekar & Loganathan (2020). Therefore, the therapist would require this skill to serve as a personal vessel of reality testing for the couple or family.

The Nature of the Practitioner-Client Relationship and Its Relative Importance

The nature of the practitioner-client relationship is like that of a parent and a child. According to Lebow (2013), family therapy must never be thought of as an adjunctive medication treatment unless the medication is viewed as an adjunctive medication treatment to the family. This is because the medication cannot do much if the couple or family does not work towards making a conducive environment for recovery and assuring the medication regimen adherence (Lebow, 2013). At the same, a parent would help their children solve issues that would allow safety and peace at home. In this case, the ‘parent’ or the therapist plays the role of a supporter, challenger, activator, interpreter, educator, and re-integrator to allow the family/couple to have a conducive environment to solve conflicts.

Evidence to support Psychodynamic Theoretical Orientation as an Appropriate Intervention for Couples and Families

Psychodynamic therapy is about a therapist placing great emphasis on the way the client projects their internal world onto the family or a spouse and the subsequent processes of interaction that happen. The psychodynamic therapist emphasizes on how effective the parents were in helping their children through the stages of development. According to Strong & Busch (2013), family therapists tend to engage in conversations that do not narrow on the individual member’s symptoms alone. As a matter of fact, Strong & Busch (2013) found that family therapy started, in part, out of the recognition that the patient bearing the symptoms may be caught up in problematic and unrecognized family members’ interactions, emotions, and patterns of thought. On the terms of DSM-5, an angry child may merit a diagnosis of the disorder of temper dysregulation (Larner, Strong & Busch, 2013).

On the other hand, a systematical-based therapist may identify a difficult pattern that engages a parent and a child in certain ways. In a case study highlighted by Nielsen (2017), a couple in their mid-30s by invented names Fred and Beth visited Nielsen (2017) for therapy sessions. They had three children and had reported being unhappy for ten years of their marriage. Beth at first expressed herself, stating that she felt unimportant to Fred and that they were constantly fighting verbally, and their sex life was almost non-existent. Beth reported that Fred had called her a bitch in their arguments. At first, Fred did not want to disclose how he felt, but later, without making eye contact, he stated that he saw Beth as his childhood mother, who was always negative and depressed, and he felt hopeless, guilty, and frustrated. Although he tried to suppress these feelings by half-heartedly agreeing with Beth to avoid them, they kept coming at him. In labeling the problem, the therapist identified the elements of the vicious cycle, including self-fulfilling factors such as the fact that Fred had recently gotten honored professionally, which reminded him of his harsh father, who never attended his memorial graduations. He also stated that her mother had forced herself to attend some of his graduations despite her depression, which led to his not going home when he was in grade school. This digging into Fred’s family origin helped the couple as it evoked Beth’s intrinsic kind side as she hugged her husband in response to the story.

In conclusion, this case study shows that the unconscious experiences of a person play an important role in a person’s life as they determine the kind of behavior that Fred had projected toward Beth in their marriage, as psychodynamic theory contends. Besides, the fact that Fred did not want to express himself at first shows that there were underlying issues that were beyond their normal arguments and fights at home over things such as limited sex and verbal abuse.

References

Bagga, H. (2021). Why Relationships Fail/ Tips to Make Connections that Last. Delhi: Namya Press.

Gregoire, J., Jungers, C., & Jungers, C. M. (Eds.). (2007). The Counselor’s Companion: What Every Beginning Counselor Needs to Know. New Jersey: Routledge.

Larner, G., Strong, T., & Busch, R. (2013). Family therapy and the specter of DSM‐5.

Lebow, J.L. (2013). Family Process. Editorial: DSM-V and Family Therapy, 52(2), 155-160.

McLeod, S. (2020). The Psychodynamic Approach. https://www.simplypsychology.org/psychodynamic.html

Neukrug, E. S. (2015). The world of the Counselor: An introduction to the Counseling profession, Edition 5. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Nielsen, A. C. (2017). Psychodynamic couple therapy: A practical synthesis. Journal of marital and family therapy, 43(4), 685-699.

Sexton, T.L. & Lebow, J. (2015). Handbook of Family Therapy: The Science and Practice of Working with Families and Couples. New York: Routledge.

Strong, T., & Busch, R. (2013). DSM‐5 and evidence‐based family therapy?. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 34(2), 90-103.

Varghese, M., Kirpekar, V., & Loganathan, S. (2020). Family Interventions: Basic Principles and Techniques. Indian journal of psychiatry, 62(Suppl 2), S192.

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For your Final Project, you will write an 8- to 10-page theory paper that articulates your theoretical orientation toward working with couples and families.

Psychodynamic Theory in Couples and Family Therapy

Your paper must include the following elements that evolve from your personal theoretical orientation:

The basic view of human nature as seen through your theoretical lens
Key factors that account for changes in behavior
An explanation of how intervention strategies are designed within this theoretical orientation
An explanation of how your theory conceptualizes mental health
Key factors that contribute to healthy family/couple relationships
A description of the skills necessary within this theoretical orientation to meet the agreed-upon goals and outcomes for couples and families
The nature of the practitioner-client relationship and its relative importance
An explanation of the evidence to support your theoretical orientation as an appropriate intervention for couples and families in need.
Information on scholarly writing may be found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), and at the Walden Writing Center website.