How do family therapy models change the way we understand a teenager who is lying, failing school, and becoming the focus of an entire family?Get more family systems theory, training and resources in my free online Skool Community here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/aboutIn this episode of Drawing the Line, Oliver Drakeford, LMFT, talks with Dr. Ben Edwards, a Los Angeles therapist and professor of family systems theory. Using a family case vignette, they move beyond the idea that the teenager is simply “the problem” and ask what her symptoms may be communicating about divorce, co-parenting, emotional distance, parental overinvolvement, and a family struggling to reorganize after a major change.One central idea in the episode: divorce may end a marriage, but it does not end the family system or the parenting relationship.The discussion draws from family systems theory, structural family therapy, and contextual family therapy. Topics include the identified patient, triangulation, circular causality, loyalty binds, family life-cycle transitions, parental hierarchy, unbalancing, paradoxical interventions, and the ways schools can unintentionally reinforce a child-focused explanation of the problem.Oliver and Ben also discuss who should attend the first family therapy session, what therapists notice when a family enters the room, and how a child’s symptoms can pull disconnected parents back into the same room. Oliver introduces two parts of his GLANCE framework—negativity and centrality—to show how a problem can become the organizing focus of family life.This conversation is for therapists, trainees, students, and anyone interested in seeing family therapy models applied to a practical clinical case.CHAPTERS00:00 Introduction00:54 The 5P family case presentation01:03 The presenting problem01:53 Triangulation after divorce03:28 Divorce reorganizes the family system04:02 Family life-cycle transitions and nodal events05:33 Moving beyond “fix the child” thinking06:23 How schools can become part of the triangle08:03 The identified patient and self-blame09:30 Overinvolved and disengaged parenting patterns10:46 Circular causality and loyalty binds12:39 Paradoxical interventions with parents13:43 Who should attend family therapy?17:21 What therapists observe in the first session20:19 Negativity and centrality in the GLANCE framework21:30 Power within the family22:46 How a teenager’s symptoms can organize the family24:21 What a teenager’s lying may communicate25:25 Final thoughts

Find out more about Dr Edwards here https://www.benedwardsphd.com/ and me, Oliver Drakeford here: https://www.oliverdrakefordtherapy.com/family-counselor/family-therapy-los-angeles-weho

This video is intended for education and professional discussion. It is not a substitute for therapy, clinical supervision, or individualized mental health care.#FamilyTherapyModels #FamilySystemsTheory #StructuralFamilyTherapy

Most of the questions therapists ask families point backward: What happened? When did it start? What have you tried already?

Those questions are useful. But when an entire session stays focused on the past, a family may hear an unintended message: you are stuck because of what has already happened.

In this episode of Family Systems in 15 Minutes, Oliver Drakeford, LMFT, looks at how family therapy models can use circular future-questioning to help families think beyond their current roles, beliefs, and patterns.

Oliver organizes circular questions into three zones: the past, the present, and the future. Questions about the past establish a timeline and help identify what changed when the problem began. Questions about the present reveal the beliefs and relationship patterns that may be keeping the problem in place. Questions about the future give family members more room to discuss hopes, fears, consequences, and possibilities that may feel too risky to name directly.

The episode introduces six types of future-focused circular questions using the acronym FUTURE:

F — Forecast: What happens if the current pattern continues?

U — Unfreeze: Who will be the first to notice when change begins?

T — Transfer: Would you carry this family role or response into your own future family?

U — Unlock: What would happen if the family’s usual roles were reversed?

R — Rehearse: How will the family handle an upcoming transition?

E — Evaluate: Has the family faced something similar before, and will the same response work again?

You’ll hear sample questions for each category, guidance on when to use them, and examples of how one well-timed question can help a family see that the future has not been decided yet.

This episode is for family therapists, trainees, and clinicians looking for practical circular questioning techniques they can use in their next family therapy session.

To receive the accompanying handout, sign up for the Family Systems Hint newsletter and look for the edition on future-oriented circular questions. You can also learn more about the Family Systems Collective, Oliver’s online community for therapists interested in family systems theory.

Oliver Drakeford is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles.

New episodes of 15 Minutes of Family Systems every week. ⁠⁠⁠Read the newsletter or subscribe using⁠⁠⁠ the link below.

https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe

Join the new free F⁠⁠⁠amily Therapy Community ⁠⁠⁠here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

In this episode, I explore systemic case formulation in family therapy and why therapists can get stuck when we rely on simple, linear explanations of who or what is causing the problem. I look at how family systems therapy helps us move beyond the identified patient and begin seeing the relational patterns surrounding a symptom.

I break down how I map a behavioral loop in couples and family therapy, including the triggers, responses, attempted solutions, and resets that keep a problem going. I also explain how circular questions can uncover the parts of the sequence we have not yet seen.

Finally, I introduce a new AI-assisted family therapy case formulation tool I created to help therapists visualize systemic patterns, identify gaps in their assessment, and generate ideas for circular questions. It is practical, slightly nerdy, and designed to help turn family systems theory into something you can use in your next session.

Join the free Family Systems Collective to try the tool, share ideas, and connect with other systems-minded therapists:

https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

Enmeshment is one of the most overused words in family systems therapy and one of the least precise.

Fun fact: Minuchin used it two different ways in the same book, and we have been carrying that confusion ever since. There is also some research on how much family closeness therapists think is normal that I found genuinely uncomfortable to read.

So this episode is about telling healthy closeness apart from the kind of control that actually needs treating. I share the model I now use for it, which has a name for a family type most of us see regularly and have never had a word for, plus a three-question check to run before you say the word enmeshed out loud.

The full matrix, the session observation guide and the checklist are free for subscribers, link below.

Oliver Drakeford is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles.

New episodes of 15 Minutes of Family Systems every week. ⁠⁠Read the newsletter or subscribe using⁠⁠ the link below.

https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe

Join the new free F⁠⁠amily Therapy Community ⁠⁠here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

More about me: ⁠⁠www.OliverDrakefordTherapy.com

This Minuchin structural family therapy case conceptualization explores one of the most fascinating and clinically complex presentations you'll encounter in family work: a young man whose dissociative identity disorder is deeply rooted in dysfunctional family structure, porous boundaries, and a cross-generational coalition between mother and son.

Using structural family therapy's core assessment tools — family mapping, the hypothesis generator, and circular questioning — we analyze how the symptom is maintaining homeostasis in the family and what the therapist needs to do to shift it.

Ideal for therapists, counsellors, and students wanting to see structural family therapy applied to a real case, this video covers hierarchy, power dynamics, enmeshment, and the all-important question every systemic therapist has to ask: what is this symptom actually doing for the family?

If you've been searching for a structural family therapy case study that goes beyond the basics and into genuine clinical depth, this one is for you.

Join the new free F⁠⁠amily Therapy Community ⁠⁠here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

New episodes of 15 Minutes of Family Systems every week. ⁠⁠Read the newsletter or subscribe using⁠⁠ the link below.https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe
More about me: ⁠⁠www.OliverDrakefordTherapy.com

Family therapy case formulation is hard, and it's easy to blur your modalities the moment you sit down to organize a session. In this episode of 15 Minutes of Family Systems, I share the simple tool I use to keep a family case formulation systemic instead of sliding into attachment styles, DSM diagnoses, and learning labels.

The video is here: https://youtu.be/F0zSbt6VwPE

It's three columns on one page, about twenty minutes of your time. History on the left, beliefs in the middle, and the behavioral loop on the right. You read it left to right and fill it in right to left, and once it's finished it hands you three things: who belongs in the room, where the resistance will come from, and the one or two places where pushing will actually work.

If you want a systemic case conceptualization that also writes your treatment plan, this one's for you. The worksheet, the circular questions, and a full worked-through case walkthrough are all inside my free Family Systems Collective community. Link in the description.

Oliver Drakeford is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles.

New episodes of 15 Minutes of Family Systems every week. ⁠Read the newsletter or subscribe using⁠ the link below.

https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe

Join the new free F⁠amily Therapy Community ⁠here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

More about me: ⁠www.OliverDrakefordTherapy.com

Circular Questions Family Therapy - a framework and technique you can use in your next Structural Family Therapy session or just to brush up on your family systems therapy techniques.Most therapists live in two or three types of circular questions without realizing there are eight. This video walks through a full framework with example questions you can use in your next session.Circular questioning came out of the Milan school of structural family therapy in the early 1980s. The core idea is that information comes from difference, and difference is where change begins. But most trainings only cover the basics: time-based questions and triadic questions between people. This video goes deeper into the cells that tend to get skipped — parts of a person, situational context, belief connections, and meaning connections.
Join the new free Family Therapy Community here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

Grab the handout to this video here https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/youtube#Circ26

Ways Therapists Get Pulled Into The Family System (And The Questions That Bring You Back)

Every therapist who does family systems work has felt it: the quiet pull toward one person in the room. In structural family therapy we're taught to join the family while staying neutral, but neutrality is slippery. By the time the parents, the school, and the psychiatrist have all had their say, the case can arrive with a plot, a villain, and a role set aside for you.

In this episode I walk through four common ways therapists get recruited into a family's system without noticing, and the diagnostic questions that help you find your way back to center. If you work with couples, families, or the identified patient in any structural or systemic model, this one is about the part of the work no supervision hour quite prepares you for: your own place on the map.

Whether you're a family therapist, an MFT trainee, or a clinician curious about structural family therapy techniques, you'll leave with a simple move to try before your next stuck session.

New episodes of 15 Minutes of Family Systems every week. Read the newsletter or subscribe using the link below.

https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe

Join the new free Family Therapy Community here https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

More about me: www.OliverDrakefordTherapy.com

This episode of Family Systems in 15 Minutes, hosted by Oliver Drakeford LMFT CGP covers complementarity — a concept from Minuchin's family systems theory.

Core idea: Every person's behavior organizes everyone else's in a family, like a mobile where pulling one piece moves all the others. Problems don't live in one person; they live in the space between family members.

Sign up for my new Family Systems Community here to get your free family systems assessment video course.

Get the email version of this in your inbox every Tuesday here:

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠

Read more about my practice here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.OliverDrakefordTherapy.com ⁠⁠⁠

In this episode of Family Systems in 15 Minutes, I’m looking at one of the sneakiest structural problems in family therapy: what happens when parents stop being in charge.

In family therapy, the authority issues are usually much harder to spot. They show up as “communication problems,” school refusal, anxiety, conflict, curfew debates, or one parent being “too harsh” while the other becomes “the protector.”

Using de-identified consultation material, I walk through three signs that the real issue may be structural: repeated conflict between parent and child, coalitions that cross generational boundaries, and hidden alliances that keep the whole system stuck.

I also share a practical intervention I call the proposal method, which helps reduce haggling, strengthen the parental subsystem, and put parents back in a united leadership position.

For therapists, psychologists, and anyone who enjoys family systems theory with a tiny bit of sarcasm and a cold, frozen English heart.

Sign up for my new online Family Systems Community here: https://www.skool.com/family-systems-collective-7929/about

Get the email version of this in your inbox every Tuesday here:

⁠⁠⁠https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/newsletters/family-systems-h-i-t-newsletter/subscribe⁠⁠⁠

Read more about my practice here: ⁠⁠⁠www.OliverDrakefordTherapy.com ⁠⁠⁠

For therapists, psychologists, and anyone who enjoys family systems theory with a tiny bit of sarcasm and a cold, frozen English heart.