Sticking Together

Book excerpt: First published in 2000. Experiential family counseling is an action-oriented approach to family therapy. Through the use of structured games and physical and intellectual challenges, many clinicians find that they are able to gain insight into the behaviors and responses that perpetuate a family's problems. While traditional treatment methods often become bogged down in verbal sparring or blame-placing between family members, experiential counseling calls for families to work together to succeed in overcoming obstacles that are set before them. And because many experiential activities can be designed as metaphors for a family's individual problems, counselors using this treatment method are given an excellent opportunity to help families practice actual solutions that can be used in their daily interactions and experiences. In Sticking Together, Jackie Gerstein has given therapists and family counselors a wonderful tool for introducing experiential counseling into their own practices. In addition to a thoughtful overview of the general uses and benefits of this unique technique, she also provides practical guidelines for developing experiential family counseling sessions. Key features include: A core section of experiential activities, games, and exercises for family therapy; Cautions that should be observed when using these activities with certain populations; Detailed processing questions with each exercise that can help families to interpret the results of experiential activities; Suggestions to encourage family goal setting; A discussion on the need for ongoing assessment during the course of experiential therapy; Samples of important documents necessary in experiential therapy programs, including performance agreements and informed consent forms. With an easy-to-use format, Sticking Together offers readers an extensive selection of family-building initiatives that promise to introduce fun into the vocabulary of family therapy.