Psy/270 Family Interview Model

On September 11, 2015 I met with Bonnie Joe Clute and Chris Mock, and delivered the “HD/W st 204 Interview Notification form.” After reading the form, they signed it and agreed to let me ask assigned questions pertaining to their family. I received their consent to interview. Bonnie and Chris are Lesbian life partners and have been a couple for 6 years. Their family consists of Bonnie’s four nieces age 7-12 and her 7 year old biological son from a previous relationship. The girls have been permanently placed in their home, and have been with them for two years. What makes this family unique is that all four girls have some degree of attachment disorder.

The Circumplex Model allows one to integrate systems theory and family developmental theory

Leadership (3) and discipline is shared equally by both parents. Bonnie has taken over the motherly role, she has a kinder, softer approach, but the children know that her word is law. Whereas Chris has taken over the more fatherly role, she is a little stricter, consistent, less flexible, and adheres to the rules. (4) The roles (5) for each family member are stable and only change when needed. The children are not comfortable with change (6) because they have experienced so much of it in their lives. The children have no behavior issues in school and are working at grade level. The negative issues with being Enmeshed is that the parents do not spend enough time apart from the children and are not putting enough time and effort into their romantic relationship. Because of the circumstances within the children’s lives, such as foster care and not living with biological parents, this has made the family very close. (7) The children will fight to be together and include the 7 yr. old brother into their sibling circle. Taking all of the trauma and loss into consideration these children are very loyal (8) to Bonnie, Chris, and each other. Activities (9) are all centered on the family, they seem to enjoy movie nights and spending time with each other. They also enjoy spending time with friends that have similar family circumstances. Bonnie and Chris would consider this group of

A pro of the map would be, that could be helpful for a client to view the map and see where they fall within the scale. Balanced couples/families will function more adequately than Unbalanced couples/families (Olson, 1999). This map would be beneficial if, for instance, the disengaged / rigid person views this tool and realizes that becoming more flexible connected would be best for their children and marriage. Or the opposite if a mother was chaotically disengaged this system could help her to have the awareness of how this behavior is effecting her family negatively. Another pro would be when this is used as a marriage theory tool it would be helpful for each spouse to view where they fall on the map and if that has a negative effect. The last pro would be that I see this process being very concrete and presented in a less threatening approach. Some clients might resist a more introspective approach if they are exposing a past issues. However, a con of the couple and family map was the map only plots cohesion, flexibility, and communication and does not take into consideration the past history of the client. It is only used as a relational diagnosis because it focuses on the relational system and not the individual, nor does it account for the environment in which the client is experiencing or cultural differences. It stated that it is sensitive to ethnicity traits, but I was