Crisis of the 9th Week

This was a very emotional week of class, since one cannot talk about how to deal with a family crisis without sharing a family crisis.  The stories that Brother Williams shared about his family life we very somber and profound, and I believed they helped to illustrate how a family can grow stronger if they approach a crisis with the right attitude and manage to grow together instead of growing apart when that crisis comes.  After this week, I believe that in order to truly overcome a crisis, a family must have a strong foundation and the members of the family must have a strong relationship with each other.  If they do not have these things, then a crisis could weaken and even destroy their family.

Another thing we talked about was group therapy and group counseling being more effective than individual therapy.  Most of what we talked about came from Cloe Madanes, and we discovered that in order for a change to come, all parties involved in the original crises need to be involved in the process of change.  We can't expect things to be different if we take one person out of the system and council them, then put them back into the problem system.  We need to council everyone so that the system they were in can be changed for the better, and the original crisis can be averted.

To sum up, after this week of class, I am all for group therapy and counseling, and I don't think much can be accomplished if a therapist is focusing on just one person when the whole family needs help.  I also want to advocate the necessity of a strong family foundation in order to overcome life's crises. 

Links: http://www.cloemadanes.com/