Feminist Therapy
This worldview, emphasized in feminist therapy, explains how multiple forms of marginalization can overlap and compound a client’s experience.
What is intersectionality?
The narrative practice of separating the person from the problem is known as this.
What is externalizing?
SFBT therapists believe clients don't need to fully understand the origin of a problem to solve it; instead, they focus on this.
What are solutions or future possibilities?
This approach to therapy views problems not as individual issues but as expressions of relational patterns in the family.
What is a systemic perspective?
A client says, “My anxiety is who I am — it controls everything.” You respond, “When did the anxiety first start telling you that?”. Which model are you applying, and what technique?
What is narrative therapy and externalizing the problem.
Feminist therapists aim for this type of therapeutic relationship where power is shared rather than held by the clinician.
What is an egalitarian relationship?
These two theorists are credited as the founders of narrative therapy.
Who are Michael White and David Epston?
This famous SFBT question asks clients to imagine what their life would look like if their problem disappeared overnight.
What is the miracle question?
Murray Bowen’s concept describing the ability to balance emotional connection and intellectual independence is called this.
What is differentiation of self?
A client reports feeling overwhelmed with a problem and doesn’t know where to start. You ask, “On a scale of 1–10, where are you today, and what would move you one point forward?”. What model and technique are being used?
What is SFBT and scaling questions?
Feminist therapy views client distress as rooted primarily in these broader influences rather than individual pathology.
What are societal and systemic factors?
This stage of narrative work involves helping clients understand the assumptions, beliefs, and meanings behind the stories they tell.
What is deconstruction?
SFBT emphasizes that this type of change can lead to meaningful improvement.
What are small/ incremental changes?
This theorist developed a model focusing on the importance of family communication stances, including placating and super-reasonable positions.
Who is Virginia Satir?
A client explains that she feels ashamed for not being “the perfect mom.” You invite her to examine where those expectations come from and how society shapes them. Which therapeutic approach is reflected here?
What is feminist therapy?
Feminist therapists often ask clients to explore how power operates in different areas of their lives (such as relationships, work, or community) to increase awareness of where they feel agency and where they feel constrained. This reflective process is known as what?
What is power analysis?
Narrative therapists refer to the emotional world and personal values in a client’s story as this kind of “landscape.”
What is the landscape of consciousness?
A question asking clients when the problem was less severe or absent is known as this.
What are exception-seeking questions?
This family therapy model involves giving paradoxical directives, often appearing counterintuitive, to disrupt dysfunctional patterns.
What is strategic family therapy?
A couple describes a pattern where one partner withdraws every time conflict increases, which makes the other partner pursue harder, escalating the cycle. You help the couple identify this repeating loop and explore the emotions underlying each step of the pattern. Which model are you applying?
What is Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy?
This movement in psychology and philosophy helped shape the foundations of feminist therapy by challenging absolute truths.
What is postmodernism or post-structuralism?
This process helps clients trace how their dominant story developed and how it influences their life.
What is mapping the problem’s influence or mapping the story?
This is the second phase in the typical SFBT structure, occurring after identifying the solvable complaint.
What is establishing goals?
In systemic family therapy, this technique is used to explore differences in each family member’s perceptions by asking them to comment on one another’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. It helps reveal interactional patterns and expands the family’s awareness of their relational cycles. What is this technique called?
What is circular questioning?
In session, the therapist notices that the parents frequently argue about discipline while the child sits silently in the background. To highlight the problematic hierarchy, the therapist rearranges the seating so the parents sit together facing the child, then has them discuss a recent conflict while maintaining this new physical structure. This reorganizes the family’s spatial alignment to reflect healthier boundaries. Which model is being used?
What is structural family therapy?