Question

Janet and Paul have been married for 17 years. They have 3 children, Susan, age 16, Jonathan, age 14, and Lillian, age 6. Janet abuses alcohol and as a result has been neglectful of the children’s care and emotional needs. Paul is in the military and spends a lot of time away and is thus unaware of Janet’s problem and how it is affecting the children. When Paul is around, he is quite strict with the children, which confuses them since Janet is so unstructured. Paul and Janet have had some conflicts as a couple throughout the years, and sought counseling some years ago, At the time, Janet was drinking but not as heavily as she is now. Janet has a history of depression and has taken antidepressant medication at times. Janet’s mother was also an alcoholic and suffered from depression. When Janet is not drinking, she appears to be overly strict, impulsive, apathetic and lacking in self-esteem.

Susan, the oldest child, is highly mature and responsible, and seems to do most of Lillian and Jonathan’s care when her mother is unavailable. Susan feels embarrassed about her mother’s alcohol problem and tries to keep this a secret. At times, she just stays late at the library to avoid having to face her mother and focuses on school as a way to distract herself from the problem. Lately her sense of responsibility has made her feel guilty about not being home to protect her siblings since her mother’s behavior has worsened.

Jonathan has been quite aggressive in school lately, too. The teacher has noticed that he fluctuates between anger and silent withdrawal. Lillian’s teacher has noticed the child’s need for attention and wonders if she is being neglected at home. Lillian is often shy, lonely and withdrawn. The teacher has invited Lillian’s parents for a conference but has not received a response. The teacher referred Lillian to the school counselor who, after noticing a couple of bruises on Lillian, was suspicious of abuse and called child protective services. Following an investigation, the family has been referred to mandatory family counseling, a parenting skills program, and alcohol treatment for Janet.

Clinical Activity:

As a family therapist what position would you take with this family?

Answer 1

I will take prospective , strategic and systematic position and step with this family as therapist.I will give my best to effectively functioning of family .firstly I will take various initive to reduce mental disorder like depression , anxiety of Janet .she needs counselling to develop parental skill and paul should aware about her wife problem and its impact on their child personality development.Beside its utmost necessary to overcome janet from alcoholic problem through various therapy and counselling .various session and programme should conduct to parental skill among them like caring , love and affection , stress management , Relationship skill , autonomy , life skill , behavioural management .jonthan is getting aggressive and lilly very introvert , shy and lonely and unsocial and Susan feel embrassed and avoid her mother only for broken family .so as therapist , the root causes of problem need to be solve .janet make understand the importance of her child and family .When there will be emotionally strong bonding and janet ,paul realizes their duty , then whole family member have strong family connection and eliminate all the mental disorder and other emotion related problem.