Strategic-Communicational Therapy: what it is and how it works

Within systemic psychological therapies there are various therapeutic models, all of them fundamentally focused on family therapy. The most prominent systemic models are narrative therapy, structural therapy, solutions and strategic-communicational therapy, this being the therapy that will be discussed in this Article.

The strategic-communicational therapy model is framed within the systemic therapies that are used fundamentally to carry out family therapies.; Two paradigms have emerged at the theoretical level, which are the theory of cybernetics and the general theory of systems (GST). Likewise, this therapy is based on postulates very similar to those of the Mental Research Institute (MRI).

In this article we will see what strategic-communicational therapy consists of, also seeing some of the main therapeutic techniques that psychologists use from this systemic approach.

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What is the Strategic-Communicational Therapy model?

The strategic-communicational therapy model is a systemic model of psychological therapy. The history of the development of this model of therapy begins with Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist who immigrated to the United States and is regarded as the first systems theorist.

Bateson was interested in the investigation of human relations and for this he began starting from the following paradigms at the theoretical: the theory of cybernetics and general systems theory (GST), which had been initially proposed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

Based on Bateson's research, the Mental Research Institute (MRI) is created in Palo Alto (California), where various theoreticians, being those who manage to originate and expand the systemic approach, being these theorists Jay Haley, John Weakland, Paul Watzlawick, Virginia Satir and Don. d Jackson.

Strategic-communicational therapy initially starts from Jay Haley's strategic therapy, who was influenced by the American psychiatrist Milton Erickson, who had revolutionized psychotherapy with a brief psychotherapeutic intervention model; however, since Haley's therapeutic model has some basic characteristics and postulates of Mental Research Institute (MRI), it is common for both models to be presented together in the main theoretical manuals on the psychotherapies.

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Vision of the person from the systemic models

Systemic models, among which is the strategic-communicational therapy model, start from the idea that the international context in which people operate is the most important variable to evaluate in psychotherapy when analyzing their behavior, even ahead of any personality trait of his.

The fundamental idea of ​​these systemic models is that a person practices only a series of behaviors that are influenced by the context or environment in which they find themselves, and may have various alternatives of action (for example, the same A person may be more outgoing and generous when meeting friends, more shy when just meeting a person, and selfish with their friends. brothers and sisters). As we have seen, this was an example that exposes different ways of behaving the same person depending on different contexts.

Strategic-communicational therapy is based on general systems theory as a starting point when trying to evaluate and understand the functioning of various groups of people, among which is a group composed of the members of a family. On the other hand, since the interaction between the members of a group of people is above all communicational, strategic-communicational therapy also is based on the fundamentals of human communication theory. That is why we will briefly explain both theories below.

1. General systems theory

According to this theory from which the strategic-communicational therapy model is nourished, A system is constituted from a series of elements and also by rules that determine the relationships between the elements that make up the system.to.

It is important to point out that from this theory the operation at a global level of the system is complicated can be explained on the basis of the properties at the individual level of each of the elements that make it up. make up.

Starting from this perspective, the family would be considered as a system and the members of that family would be the elements that constitute that system. Keep in mind that there are nuclear families, made up of parents and children only, and extended families, which also include grandparents, cousins, uncles, etc.

Therefore, an extended family is a system that is made up of several nuclear families, which in this case could be called subsystems. Bearing this in mind, we are going to explain some fundamental concepts of general systems theory.

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2. Human communication Theory

The other model on which the strategic-communicational therapy model is based, known as the theory of human communication; It is based on 5 axioms that serve to understand communication between people.

The first of the axioms basically comes to say that “it is impossible not to communicate”, since when someone decides to remain silent they are also transmitting a message, even if it is non-verbal.

The second refers to “any message can have two levels”: content and relationship. Let's see an example imagining the case of a mother who wants her son to make an effort in college and, for this reason, she tells him: “you should make an effort in the degree and pass everything”. Depending on the level of content, the information is easy to see at a glance: “you should study more hours”. The relationship level adds an underlying information to the other being linked to the relationship that exists between the two: "I have the right to ask you to study more, since I am the one who pays your race".

The third axiom is related to the idea that each person who is a participant during an interpersonal communication “has their own version of the facts”, having seen things from his point of view and being sure that he is the one who is right and not the people who saw the facts from a different perspective than his.

The fourth refers to the premise that “in communication there are two levels”: digital and analog. Digital communication is one that is fundamentally verbal, while analog communication is basically non-verbal.

The fifth is based on "Communicational interactions can be complementary or symmetrical". A complementary interaction would be one in which there is a difference between the people who are part of it, one of them having assumed power and being accepted by the other. When the interaction is symmetrical, the two people who interact are in an equal position, although each one defends her point of view during a discussion.

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Characteristics of the Strategic-Communicational Therapy model

Next, we will see what the main characteristics of the strategic-communicational psychotherapy model are.

1. The fundamental objectives

The psychotherapist must break that dysfunctional pattern of interactions between family members that maintains the problem in order to establish other more functional forms of action and, consequently, achieve new points of view about reality.

Other important objectives are to correct inadequate communication styles among family members and also to redistribute power within the family.

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2. the psychotherapist

From the systemic perspective in which the strategic-communicational therapy model is framed, the psychotherapist is in a position of power, being the one who, based on some strategies, after having read the interactions between family members, is in charge of proposing changes in the family system that go against of the logic of the members that make up the system, so that it must have good skills that allow it to be able to convince all the members so that the therapy is successful.

Therefore, the psychotherapist is active, so that he is responsible for assuming responsibility for the improvement and also looking for ways to create small differences that lead to change that is more big.

On the other hand, the psychotherapist must be creative and flexible, in the sense that he must be a strategist when it comes to benefiting from the use of the forces of each of the members of the family with the aim of achieving advances that benefit the development of a good environment and a functional mode of communication among all they. Likewise, it must be the psychotherapist who is in charge of opening the perspective towards new points of view and also new behaviors, these being more functional and beneficial for the family.

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3. How to solve problems in the family system

From strategic-communicational therapy, the following philosophy is followed at a strategic level through a series of techniques: "a change must be designed that allows a problem to be solved". Based on this idea, it is considered that the problems are being maintained by the fact that what people are doing in order to try to solve them is not working.

To achieve a strategic change within strategic communication therapy, the following ideas must be taken into account:

• To solve the problem you don't necessarily have to change people.
• Sometimes it is enough to introduce a small difference into the family system.
• Each therapeutic intervention must be unique for each family and adapted to each case.
• To solve the problem, you can seek to change a certain pattern of specific people.

4. Haley's Strategic Therapy Interventions

From the strategic-communicational therapy model, various forms of intervention that were proposed by Haley can be used.

First of all, it's direct intervention, which is when the therapist requests that something else be done in order to block the pattern of dysfunctional interactions.

Secondly, when indirect intervention is performed, metaphorical tasks can be used that serve for situations in which the family has difficulties in dealing directly with the problem. Another form of indirect intervention would be through paradoxical tasks, which is when a patient is asked to make an effort to do the symptom voluntarily.

Through the intervention modality of the ordeal, the objective is to allow the person to make an effort to do voluntarily the symptom as in the paradoxical tasks, but this time he must associate it with a task that is upset.