Salvador Minuchin, biography of the creator of structural family therapy

Salvador Minuchin is a reference in the structural model of family therapy. This Argentine psychiatrist and pediatrician is remembered for his charisma and dedication as a professional. The contributions that he left us through his work have been immense, allowing us to understand much better the dynamics and daily challenges of the family.

When Minuchin left us in 2017 he was almost 100 years old. There are many who place his name next to such relevant figures as Sigmund Freud, B. F Skinner or Carl Rogers.. He was a pioneer as a therapist and an innovator in providing help to children including families. Without it, he said, it is impossible to understand the origin of certain symptoms.

He told us about such interesting aspects as alliances between family members. She taught us how power is exercised and how submission originates in this scenario. He was a psychiatrist with an exceptional ability to allow, among other things, the emotional component to emerge. In this way, he explained, he could better work on tensions, traumas, damages and unaddressed needs.

Salvador Minuchin was an architect rebuilding family structures. He knew how to enter them to intuit the dynamics that fuel pathological processes. Later, through highly directive interventions, she managed to facilitate appropriate changes, always placing children in the most prominent position, as valuable interlocutors.

Salvador Minuchin, biography of a family therapist

Salvador Minuchin He was born in Argentina in 1921. He studied medicine at the University of Córdoba and graduated in 1948. Later, he would spend a few years in Israel working as a doctor for the army. After that experience, He decided to settle in New York to study psychiatry.

There he would also train as a psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute. This would allow him to work as a child psychiatrist at the Wiltwyck Children’s Correctional Facility. It was in this very decisive period (between 1954 and 1962) when Minuchin decided to change the classic therapeutic approach.

He developed a type of therapy in which to include the children’s families. He put the focus of attention on that dynamic system. In turn, allowed each session to be observed by the rest of the psychiatrists through a room with a one-way mirror. This way, all therapists could learn from each other and improve techniques.

Through these innovative dynamics, Salvador Minuchin ended up developing the structural family therapy.

Working with Jay Haley and the family counseling clinic

After formulating his new theories in the field of family therapy, Minuchin traveled to Palo Alto, California. There, she worked with Jay Haley in the family counseling clinic. This famous therapist was one of the founders of brief and family therapy and the mentor who would help him further shape and mature his innovative approaches.

Of that common work the book Families of the Slums emerged (1967).In it, Minuchin first described his theory of family therapy based on the structural model. Later, his most relevant project would arrive: the child guidance clinic in Philadelphia, which he founded and directed for nearly 10 years.

In 1981 he would leave his position as director to create the Institute of Family Studies. There, he would teach both therapists and family members how to improve parenting and optimize education processes.

Salvador Minuchin died on October 30, 2017 in Boca Raton, Florida.

The theoretical contributions of Salvador Minuchin to family therapy

His work at the Wiltwyck Boys’ Correctional Facility was key to Minuchin’s development of his theoretical model.. He realized, for example, that it was not much use to focus all the work exclusively on those young people who, once rehabilitated and discharged, reoffended and returned to the center.

Next, we present lSalvador Minuchin’s theoretical contributions to family therapy:

It was not useful to focus on the patient exclusively, if the context was not taken into account, that is, the family. By including the close context, it was possible to better understand that invisible framework full of signifiers that determines the child’s life. Pathological behaviors very often tend to remain as an effect of family dynamics.

The goal of Salvador Minuchin’s therapy

The therapeutic objective in Salvador Minuchin’s structural model was understand interactions present in a specific family system in order to transform them. To do this, we will seek to improve the behaviors and relationships of the members of that family, taking into account the child or adolescent as the protagonist.

The family as a dynamic entity and as a person’s sense of identity

One of the postulates that underpin Minuchin’s theoretical model is that The family is a dynamic entity that is in continuous movement:

Therefore, the therapist must focus not only on the interaction of that group of people. Besides, You must understand the changes, explore the past and investigate in those processes that configure the current situation of that scenario. Likewise, It is understood that the family gives a sense of identity to each memberIn these interactions, games of strength, domination, submission, etc. They make each person end up adopting a position. However, another phenomenon appears at the same time: the desire for separation and individuation, like that inherent in every adolescent.

Diagnosis of family structure

When carrying out the diagnosis of the family structure of a child to adolescent, The therapist must focus on the following aspects:

The limits. The subsystems.The evolutionary cycle of the family.Family alliances and coalitions. The hierarchy of power.The degree of flexibility to change.Sources of support and stress.

In conclusionthis Argentine psychiatrist and pediatrician also left us books as important as Family Recovery, Family Kaleidoscope or Family Therapy Techniques. His work is highly appreciated by academics, social justice expertsfamily therapists and also by anyone interested in improving the lives of children and their immediate environment.

We cannot forget that by serving families, we are promoting a more dignified, healthy and happy future. In this task, Salvador Minuchin was one of our best exponents.

You might be interested…