City Island Case Analysis

City Island - Clinical Case Analysis Paper City Island is a movie about the Rizzo family from Bronx, New York and the complixities of their individual lives and how they merge together and are chaotically exposed. In this case analysis I will be using structural therapy to analyze the family’s dynamics and they areas they can improve.

How to engage the individuals and whole family in treatment Family Structural therapy is more productive with all members of the family-of-origin present, ideally all would be present in sessions. On viewing the film I can forsee the benefit of joining the family and accommodating to their style of communication. As a family from City Island, a small island in Bronx, New York, the family has a very forward,

Depending on how the family was arranged in the room, I may want to rearrange them in order to strengthen some bonds or weaken others. I would want the mother and father together, the little brother in the middle between his parents and his sister, since he seems to be forcing himself away from the family by instigating arguments. This would be a way to try and reconnect them. I would want to assess the parental hierarchy to see if their way of parenting is effective, insufficient, or excessive. Based on the arguments and relationships observed in the film I would say that their parrenting style is insufficient. When parenting styles are insufficient “parents are not able to effectively manage the child’s behavior and often adapt a permissive parenting style” (Gehart pg. 145). An example of the permissive parenting style can be seen at a scene at the dinner table when the mother notes that her youngest son never goes to class. This is someting I would want to ask the family more about. Did they try punishing the youngest son for not going to class? How did the son respond? Also, I would like to observe when the son was sent to his room he was fine with that so called punishment because, as he said in the movie, he had everything he needed in his room. His TV and computer were up there and his family was not. I can see how his room is probably an escape for him. His room is also a place where he can escape to the internet to

I feel that the husband, and main character, by telling his family about his secret, he would now be able to reset the rigid and distant boundaries to set up clear and effective ones. The new effective boundaries would reconnect and support the spousal subsystem and strengthen the parental system. My concern with the youngest son is that he has excluded himself from the family. The symptoms from the exclusions has resulted in a fetish for obese women and over-sexualization.

If you were to see the whole family for therapy, whom do you think might drop out of therapy first? Discuss why you think so. If I were to see the whole family for therapy I think that the daughter would drop out first. She is going away to college out of town, so distance may be an issue. But due to the recent event of her being kicked out of college, she may move back home. Ideally she would be getting back into school, hopefully getting a new job other than being a stripper, and assert her independence in a healthy way. In this stage she should be “launched” and finding her own way in the world, I don’t see it necessary for her to be at therapy unless there is a major issue that directly involves her.

If you were to see the family for therapy, whom do you think might get the most out of therapy at first, and whom