The Jones family is composed of a mother, her live-in boyfriend, and seven children. The family receives financial assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Mrs. Jones is depressed and complains of losing control of the children. There is continuous fighting among them. According to Minuchin's model of family treatment, the most helpful intervention would be

Question

A. sibling play therapy with each child to encourage them to verbalize their feelings.
B. first working with the family's neutral subgroupings, then changing the subgroupings and actually manipulating them in relation to the whole family group.
C. working with Mrs. Jones and her boyfriend.
D. working with the adolescent subgrouping giving Mrs. Jones the most problems.

Answer 1

B. first working with the family's neutral subgroupings, then changing the subgroupings and actually manipulating them in relation to the whole family group.

Sal Minuchin, a structural family therapist, believed that child therapy could not be practiced outside of the context of the family. Thus, an approach using the Minuchin model would require that at least initially, the practitioner will intervene with the whole family. None of the other choices includes the entire family as the focus on intervention.