Simulated Family Therapy: A Classroom Demonstration

In this article, we describe a demonstration and discussion of an ini-tial family therapy interview simulated by 4 student volunteers. Several concepts and principles fundamental to family therapy are illustrated: interview stages, one-person definition of a problem, systemic perspective, clear generation line, unified executive team, disengaged parent, overinvolved parent, scapegoated child, func-tional–dysfunctional family, and family dance. Some interview scenarios also illustrate the concepts of triangulation and coalition. Pretesting and posttesting indicate that the demonstration and dis-cussion were instructive and positively perceived. Family therapy is a common topic in textbooks dealing with psychopathology, psychotherapy, and counseling. Class-room demonstrations of concepts and principles relating to family therapy are far less common. We reviewed a number of sources: four volumes of the Activities Handbook for th