So this approach, experiential family therapy, is, like I said, it is one of the older family therapy approaches. It's also, I think, one of the most difficult, arguably the most difficult approach to understand. I consider it a very advanced form of working with families.
I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about this. approach and rightfully so. And hopefully we're going to put all of that, uh, straighten out, clear all that up, um, today. What I love about this approach, um, is that it really adds, enables you to add a level of authenticity and bringing your humanity to your work. And so, um, there is something that is very freeing.
And I think Once you learn how to integrate some of the concepts that we're going to talk about today, there's something that becomes very refreshing about your work. People feel like they get to this real kind of human contact with you, which, you know, you're not in this artificial role of being a therapist. The freedom to use humor, which I think is so important. I know many people have watched me, you know, do live sessions and often people will comment on how surprising it is on how much I laugh with my clients.
And I think laughter is part of the whole spectrum of human emotion and of healing emotions and part of the process. And so I hope if nothing else, symbolic experiential therapy invites you to just rethink how often you can authentic, how real, how present, how in the moment, how fully human you are with your clients. And so I think that is one of the gifts that Carl Whitaker gives to us through his legacy, through his work.
And so I'm really excited to be able to share this with you. And those of you who are taking the National Marriage and Family Therapy exam, You definitely do want to listen to this webinar at least once all the way through to the end, because this theory is frequently shows up on the national MFT licensing exam. And it's really difficult theory to understand. The concepts are pretty complex, but it has the best vocabulary.
OK, so my theory is the reason this ends up on the national exam so much is that it's just got juicy. juicy jargon. Oh, that's a new term, juicy jargon, in terms of just really interesting concepts, fascinating ways that they phrase things, and it just makes for a great exam question.
So for those of you taking the exam, definitely take some notes. So let's go ahead and get started here. So in a nutshell, the least you need to know, this is a therapeutic approach.
developed primarily by Carl Whitaker and his colleagues. It is very much a humanistic experiential approach with a real emphasis on that experiential. We're going to talk a lot about how symbolic experiential therapists create in vivo, in session, lived experiences that are transformative. It is often referred to as therapy of the absurd.
And there is this very unconventional, playful wisdom that symbolic experiential therapists use. Part of the idea is to, you know, put people off balance because systemically that opens you up to change and to shifting in ways that are natural and organic for the individual and or the family. So this is definitely... This therapy of the absurd, it's different.
I'll tell you that, it's different. And I invite you to be curious and stick with me on this because I think in the beginning when most of us, especially if you're new to the field, you're just learning about therapy, you have the stereotype of what therapy is supposed to look like. And trust me, this is not it.
And yet there is a lot of wisdom in this approach that I think all of us can benefit from. So- One thing like all the other experiential humanistic family therapy approaches is that they're really focusing on what I would call the emotional process or the emotional system as well as family structure. But there's this focusing and analyzing what's going on in the family by really honing in on what are the emotional transactions in the system.
And. And there is this, they are very adamant in this approach about balancing pretty strong emotional confrontation, which is what most people find little like takes them aback, with warmth and support. And so there is this balancing of there is warmth, there is support, there is caring, and then there is very direct. honest emotional confrontation, not kind of glossing over problems, not minimizing problems, not sugarcoating things.
So, you know, symbolic experiential therapists are not the ones who are going to sugarcoat whatever they see going on. They're going to create a context of warmth and support. And then there will also be direct confrontation that it's not sugarcoated is all I'm going to say when they work with clients. And so what is interesting, and I think even when I first heard about all of this approach and this way of working, I really was like, I don't know about that.
Isn't it therapy supposed to be warm and supportive and make you feel good? And what's really interesting, I will say, and maybe you can refer back to some of your friends, but, you know, the symbolic experiential therapist, you feel very close to them. Sort of like if you have friends, you have a friend or two who will just tell you the truth. They're not going to tell you what you want to hear, what they think you want to hear, what's just going to make everything go smooth and easy.
Between the two of you, they're going to tell you what you need to hear. And there's this honesty there, which often is not fun or comfortable. Like, really? That's what you think?
Or they hit, you know, it does sometimes feel like you're getting hit across the head with a two by four. but they speak the truth. And because they share that truth and they are open with you, there is this deep bond and trust that gets formed. And I will tell you this, I wouldn't necessarily say I work in a symbolic experiential way, but I have really over the years, and it took years, I think, for me to develop the confidence to be this as honest and authentic and having the capacity to be direct. And many clients have told me, told me that because I can do direct emotional confrontation in a therapeutic way in a safe environment that enables them to trust me in a whole different level compared to therapists who are just trying to make them feel good and smooth things over and sugarcoat them.
And so this is just something to really be aware of. And I know this isn't a lecture on the Myers-Briggs, but I like to use the Myers-Briggs in a very kind of deconstructed way, not the 16 personality types, but just in terms of how people's minds and hearts and how people think and how they make meaning and how they interpret the world. And so one of the things I will say is in some of my research I've done, that people who tend to be thinking and highly logical people versus feeling on the Myers-Briggs, right? The people who tend to approach life from a very analytical position, which more of those being men than women.
You will find that this capacity for talking directly, not sugarcoating things, is essential for them to trust you as a therapist. So it's just something to keep in mind if you're shy to think about doing that. It really is an important part of what we do.
So if we look at the unifying framework, if you have my fourth edition of Mastering Competencies, you'll have these tables in your text. So the grand scheme of things, the unifying framework, there are four basic main levels, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and societal narratives. And what you're going to find with some symbolic experiential, it certainly hangs out on the emotional level. And it does address some of the primary or attachment-based emotions. But most of what you're going to hear talked about today is what the secondary or the emotions that we consciously experience.
anger, sadness, joy, grief, hurt, all of that. So they're going to play on that level quite a bit. And the other thing that they really focus on is what are called complementary patterns. So these are opposites, right?
Looking at where we have polarities in the family system or in the individual psyche, right? The over-functioner, the under-functioner, the pursuer, the distancer, the emotional one, the logical one. They're going to be looking at all of these polarities and kind of how these play out in the emotional system.
So this emotional level, along with complementarities, is where they focus and kind of fall into this unifying framework. And another thing I just want to put out there, if you're familiar with the experiential therapists, there's individual therapies that had humanistic experiential therapists as well as a family therapist. What I find very fascinating is if you're familiar with individual kind of counseling and psychotherapy, you'll know you'll be very familiar with Carl Rogers as one of the leading humanists.
And you'll notice that he really focused on unconditional positive regard. And when you look at the family therapy approaches, we have Virginia Satir, who works in a very similar way. Their therapies have very similar feelings. They're not the same, but they are the similar styles, Carl Rogers and Virginia Satir.
There is this incredible warmth and caring and support. And they did definitely confront, but it was in this kind of softer, more gentle style. And then both individual counseling and family therapy have...
humanistic therapists, humanistic experiential therapists who really emphasized authenticity. And so you see that with Fritz Perls. And if you're familiar with Fritz Perls'work, you'll see that Carl Whitaker has a very similar style in terms of they're more abrasive. I'm just going to call it what it is. They're more abrasive.
They're more direct. They're quicker to directly confront in a way that makes a client uncomfortable. And so This is a real different way. So the authenticity, being fully human, embracing everything that is human, you're going to see very strongly in Carl Whitaker's work that we'll be talking about today.
It's very reminiscent to me of what Fritz Perls did. And even though all of these folks are humanistic experiential, I would say Rogers and Satir have a very different way of embodying the same basic humanistic principles. And so I... offer this to you.
I just created this slide for this presentation. Hopefully it helps you kind of keep all the different theorists and theories straight as we go through today. Okay. Yeah, someone's commenting. Let's see some questions here.
Yes. Polarity, support, confrontation, authenticity sounds like gestalt. Yep.
I think you said that probably went in right before I said it out loud. And yes, it is true. As part of this authenticity that Carl Whitaker wants, well, at least I believe it to be true, that he fell asleep in a session and he defended it.
He's like, you know, the client was boring. The client was avoiding everything real and it put me to sleep. So why not let the client know that that's the effect they're having on this? So I'm getting another question.
How is this different than the recording that's already on Laugh Your Way to Licensure? This is going to maybe go into more detail. It's another data point.
There's also another older version of this lecture on YouTube. And you know what? Every five, 10 years, I refresh my lectures. And I'm sure I say some things similar and some things different because I've grown as a clinician.
But I'm hoping over the years, especially as I build out my unifying framework, I'm able to explain things in a more simplified, clear way. for uh for everyone here so let's look at the juice the significant contributions to the field and so if you're familiar with my textbooks you know i i have the juice in every every um for every theory that i cover both in my counseling theories and my family therapy theories because i think anyone in this field who does counseling professional you know psychotherapy that every major theory has wisdom to offer us i'm appreciative of everyone who has gone before me to pioneer this work. And I will tell you over the 30 plus years I've been doing this work, I've needed every theory, every good idea at some point in my career, because it's a tough job. This is a no-nonsense job.
And I take every bit of wisdom and insight about humanity, suffering, and how to help people through suffering. So that is what the juice is. If there's one thing you take away from this lecture and integrate into your daily work, I think it should be this. So the battle for structure and the battle for initiative.
And if you're in a family therapy graduate program or taking the national exam, this theory is currently not on the California exam. You will probably see this because this is great, juicy vocabulary. I'm just telling you, juicy jargon. It's my new term for the day. So there is the battle for structure.
which is the battle that needs to be won by the clinician, okay? And this is setting the limits and boundaries for therapy. And one of the most important elements of the battle for structure is often in symbolic experiential, especially traditionally, that the people that the therapist believes needs to be in the room all need to show up or they would not see the client.
So this often would take the form of if the whole family can't show up, the therapist would not meet with the family. And so this is this. can be very difficult to implement in practical settings, but that was certainly where this therapy approach started. And I think the idea here is that you as a clinician do need to use your clinical judgment in terms of setting up the structure for therapy. And it is very common that the client, or especially if it's a couple family issue, not everyone wants to agree to come in.
We want to focus on, you know, just the child's problem. This is not nothing to do with the conflict going on between the parents here. And this is where the clinician needs to have confidence and courage to have this battle for structure of who needs to come, how often, you know, today's world is online versus face-to-face.
There are times even with my ongoing clients that, you know, I had a couple go into have a real difficult, you know, go into kind of a negative, yeah, having a difficult time. And, you know, my clinical judgment is I need to see you in person for a few sessions to get things back on track. And so this doesn't always mean you're fighting to get the whole family in there. But you as a clinician, there are times you're like, I will see you in person or, you know, I won't see you in person.
I've had someone who I said, can I please see you online? Because I have an online intervention that works so much better online. You know, so for one session, I need to see you online so I can do this particular intervention. And that realizing, yes. In general, I'm very accommodating to what clients need.
I'm very flexible in a lot of ways. But there are times where we, if we're providing a mental health intervention and service, at the end of the day, we're responsible for the structure of treatment to ensure it maximizes the possibility of positive outcomes. It's important we not be afraid to do that. On the other hand, there is the battle for initiative.
And this needs to be won by the client. And I think this can be summed up as the therapists never work harder than their clients. And so the battle for initiative is, you know, the goal is to get the clients hungrier for change than we are as the clinician. And so someone mentioned in the chat about Carl Whitaker falling asleep.
Yep. He's like, yep. Battle for initiative.
I'm more invested in keeping the client on topic than they are, or I'm more invested in. you know, making sure we talk about the right thing than they are. Me falling asleep is I'm supposed to lose the battle for initiative.
And so, um, so there's this idea that you're not going to work harder than your clients do. Obviously that doesn't mean you sit back and slack and do nothing, but you need to set things up so that they're, that you maximize their motivation and eagerness for change. So let's look, um, kind of at the big picture here of what is going on.
So like other traditional systemic approaches, right, a symbolic experiential therapist is not coming in like a mechanic to fix the family structure. They are not going to tinker and educate, you know, how to get the parents to set up the hierarchy correctly, or they're not going to go in there and tinker and like educate people. You know, this is the type of boundary you should be having.
You should be doing this and not that, right? What they're doing is what is in systemic theory called perturbing the system. We're disturbing the system. And the concept here is that a family system is bigger than any of the individuals in it. No one person controls it.
And all we can do as a family therapist is to perturb the system. So I kind of think of this, the system is almost like this little I think of it like a solar system, but the, you know, but it's got, you know, all these little balls and rubber bands. And all we do is we throw things at it, right? And it's, we shake it up, you know, it's like a snow globe. We're just shaking it up, shaking it up.
And that when we shake it up and give it new stimuli and put it in novel situations, we make it uncomfortable. We get outside their comfort or homeostasis, right? The family has to like go, what's going on here?
And they have to make, respond differently. They're going to be new behaviors because there are new inputs into the system. And so, you know, so for example, if the family comes in, the classics, you know, example is a family comes in and everyone's saying, let's say it's the adult daughter is the depressed one.
But, you know, if you as a clinician at one point say, you know what, I actually think dad's the one who's the most depressed here. Yes, but called perturbing the system. You have given them a reframe, a new way of looking at things where everyone's got to pause and say, what the heck just happened here? Let me think about that. Right.
because you've done it with a hopefully within a context of safety and so it it unbalances the system and so yes you're you are unbalancing the system and they use a lot of what's called absurdity to do this okay and so but they're they're not being absurd for absurdity's sake they are not class clowns but they're using a very carefully crafted form of quote-unquote absurdity for a very specific purpose and so what they're trying to shake it up to allow new behaviors, new ways of seeing things, new ways of feeling to emerge. And so there is care in how they perturb. And it's done from a place of trying to be helpful and interestingly enough, to be respectful. They're respecting like the wisdom, the natural organizing principle of the system.
And you're trusting the clients to reorganize, to find new ways of relating that work better for them. And you're not micromanaging it. You're trusting the system will do that because they're encountering new stimuli, new input. And oftentimes this absurdity is being willing to speak the truth when no one else will.
And so, you know, some people will just... you know, see some of these interventions as being kind of brutally honest is sometimes the word that is used. And there certainly are times and clients and places where you will find this is what is needed.
And as long as they know that and feel that you have their best interest at heart, this type of brutal honesty can be extremely powerful, extremely healing. and be what is necessary for change, even though it may not be the nicest thing to say. So let's look at the therapeutic relationship and symbolic experiential. So one of the things that you will notice here, and I think what is very unique here, is the therapist's authentic use of self.
And so the therapist is trying to be fully authentic. and not following some very artificial professional pretenses as to what's considered professional or not. Now, what does this really mean? I think the one thing to remember in all of this is that your authenticity has to be in service of the client's greater good.
So you going in there to just be you and, you know, whatever, swear or, you know, interact in ways that are just authentic for you so you feel good being you. That's not quite what we're saying here. What we're saying is you're going in, you are in a professional role and you're facilitating a professional process, but at the same time you bring your full humanity rather than kind of hiding behind a professional mask.
And so compared to other approaches, your clients will feel like they know who you are as a human. But you are still, to a certain extent, modifying to be appropriate for the professional context. And everything still needs to be in service of the clients, you know, benefiting the client.
So the therapist's job is to really push clients to fully accept full responsibility for their own lives. So the therapist is not stepping in there to be a parent. The therapist is kind of...
prodding people to and pushing people to take responsibility for their life decisions, where their life direction, where they're going, their relationships. And the therapist is not going to step into that sort of parental role, but instead support the client and kind of taking the reins in their own life. There really is this concept of stimulating mutual growth and that the therapist and the client are going to grow together.
through these authentic encounters. And I do think it is one of the beautiful sides of our work. In that, you know, in doing this work and especially doing it as a fully authentic person, that you are going to grow alongside your client in terms of learning new things about life, understanding the complexity of the human experience, understanding something about yourself, right?
So there are all these different ways that this, the relationship is very authentic and you bring your full self to it. That doesn't mean you're getting your personal needs met, but you're able to use humor, you're able to cry with your clients, laugh with your clients, you know, feel, sit in silence, you know, in feeling the loss or the grief or the mourning with your clients. And so this kind of full range of human experiencing and expression and bringing that out.
to your work is very much part of this approach. You know, and it's funny, this is one thing, there's an element of this that I would say that I have ended up, I don't know, adopting over the years. And I came to this, I would initially have said through more of a postmodern collaborative, which is a very kind of partnering approach, which also says similarly, that there's mutual growth between therapist and client.
But one of the things in terms of how I relate to clients, how I teach my students in the Unifying Framework course to relate to clients is that I, one of the way this full authenticity takes shape for me is I will often gasp like this. You know, I will go, oh my God, I do these types of things. I will gasp just, or like this in session. And, and I often do that when I, a client says something. that is startling, startles me in terms of often how it can be painful something is or how rude someone was.
I'm trying to think of, I'm just thinking of some gasps from last week's sessions. Just outrageous, some of the behavior my clients receive. And oftentimes this is around issues of either sexism or racism. you know, those sorts of things, or, you know, just abuse that people have sometimes received either at home or at work.
And obviously, this has to be appropriate for the client's response. And, and so what many clients, especially clients who have felt either marginalized, or not heard or silenced, such as when you've had sexual abuse, and no one believes you, when I gasp, well, you know, when they share some, you know, just incredibly sad. either cruel or harsh or just insensitive experience they've had from someone else my clients have told me the fact that i gasp when they tell me you know my parent did this and i have this visceral response that mirrors their lived reality um They tell me that that is 10 times better than telling me that must have been really, you know, compared, they feel seen, they feel heard in a very authentic, sincere way, human to human.
And when you compare that to the traditional or, you know, another version of a humanistic response would be like, that must have been really difficult for you. You must have felt very alone. That is the classic Rogerian response to hearing someone share. Let's say how someone didn't believe them when they, a parent didn't believe them when they told them about sexual abuse, right?
You must have felt very betrayed. You must have felt alone. That's your traditional one. But when you're, which could be helpful, it can be helpful, absolutely. The more symbolic experiential, we're talking authenticity here is the, oh my God, I can't believe that happened to you, is a whole different level of, you know, kind of corrective emotional experience as it is sometimes called, where it's like.
Yes, that was the response I wanted from my partner or my parent or my friend. And that's what I was expecting people. And I've had many people tell me that is the response I expected from 20 other people when I told this story. And you're the only one who had the response that was authentic and real and resonated.
And you get it. You see it. You see what I'm seeing. I'm not alone here.
So this type of authentic. Relating is extremely powerful. It's something you need to be careful with and make sure you're getting feedback from your clients.
And certainly if you're learning just to work in this way, to get lots of live supervision where you have a supervisor watching your nonverbals and your authenticity to make sure it resonates and you want to get feedback from clients. But when you learn to work in this way, it is extremely powerful in terms of helping clients feel seen, heard. And adding that level of witnessing of their lived experience in ways that words just cannot capture.
Even empathetic words cannot necessarily capture the same feeling as this level of like visceral authenticity. They know you're there in the room with them, fully human, going through what they were side by side with them.