Salvador Minuchin: biography of this pioneer in family therapy.

Summary of the life of Salvador Minuchin, who developed structural family therapy.

From humble origins, this precursor of family therapy never stopped working as a therapist and teacher of other future professionals who sought to follow his model.

Minuchin's extensive career in the field of psychotherapy allowed him to develop a new model of therapy, known as structural family therapy, which originated in his work as a therapist with dysfunctional families.

In this biography of Salvador Minuchin we will review the life of this researcher and the complete work of this researcher. and the complete work carried out by this Argentine psychiatrist in the field of family therapy.

Brief biography of Salvador Minuchin

Salvador Minuchin was born on October 13, 1921 in the city of San Salvador, in the province of Entre Ríos (Argentina), to a family belonging to a close-knit community of Russian-Jewish immigrants.He was born into a family belonging to a close-knit community of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He was the eldest of three children born to his parents, who earned their living in a small local store.

His family went through numerous economic hardships due to various socio-economic changes in the country, even losing their business after the great financial crisis of 1929, known as the Great Depression.

As a result, his father had to devote himself for a time to work as a horse muleteer. In the meantime, Minuchin worked with her mother as a saleswoman selling all kinds of products. Years later, an uncle of Minuchin's rescued the family business, becoming the head of the business in place of Minuchin's father.

It is worth noting that Despite all the economic hardships that Salvador Minuchin's family went through, he and his siblings never neglected their studies, as their parents made sure that they never missed the opportunity that would allow them to have a more prosperous future.Their parents made sure that they never lost that opportunity that would allow them to have a more prosperous future.

Admission to medical school at the National University of Córdoba.

In 1940, after completing his secondary education studies, Minuchin enters the medical school of the National University of Córdoba (Argentina).. While he was in his fourth year of university, the country suffered a military coup, leaving education under the control of the State, being previously directed by representatives of teachers and students, so that several students who opposed it, including Salvador Minuchin, were imprisoned.

After spending 3 months in prison, Minuchin was readmitted to the university, graduating in 1946, choosing the specialty of pediatrics.

First stay in New York: first contact with child psychiatry.

Two years after graduating, Minuchin's attention was drawn to the conflicts taking place in Israel. he decided to help the Israeli army as a medical doctor..

After the end of the war, Salvador Minuchin decided to travel to New York to continue his training, specializing in child psychiatry and working in a hospital with children suffering from psychotic disorders.

During that time as a worker in the New York children's hospital, he worked in a hospital with children suffering from psychotic disorders. met a psychologist specializing in child development named Patricia Pittluck, whom he married.. Both worked side by side in their work as psychotherapists, helping each other to continue to grow in the field of work and research.

Return to Israel

In 1951, Minuchin returned to Israel, accompanied by his wife, in order to continue his work, even to the point of co-directing five institutions focused on helping children who had been orphaned. who had been orphaned during World War II, as well as migrant children from the Middle East and Asia, who had been taken into the homes of the institutions Minuchin directed.

In these institutions Minuchin learned a great deal about cultural diversity and this experience allowed him to understand the benefit of working with groups rather than individuals.

Return to the United States

In 1954, Minuchin and his wife, now parents, returned to the United States. It is at this stage that Minuchin began to work with the psychiatrist who developed the interpersonal theory, Harry Stack Sullivanat the William Alanson White Institute, where Minuchin developed his training as a psychoanalytic therapist.

Work at Wiltwyck School for Boys: origin of the development of structural family therapy.

Three years after beginning his training with Sullivan, Minuchin began his work as a psychiatrist at the Wiltwyck School for Boys, an educational institute where youngsters who had suffered numerous conflicts in their lives and tended to belong to dysfunctional families attended. There he soon realized that working with these youngsters in the context of the school and applying a series of psychological techniques was not helping the youngsters and that they were not getting results in the long run.

Minuchin then decided that it would be more appropriate to work with the young people with problems in their family context and, after 8 years of long work with the help of his team of collaborators, they developed a theoretical model of the problem, they developed a theoretical model of how dysfunctional families function.They went on to create a series of psychotherapeutic techniques that could help them.

In 1967 he published "Families of the Slums", where he explains everything he learned in his work as a psychotherapist with the families and young people who came to study at Wiltwyck, exposing the foundations of structural family therapy, a therapeutic model established by Minuchin and his collaborators.

Structural family therapy postulates that a dysfunctional family organization is a support for the problematic symptoms of the youngsters.Therefore, the objective of the psychotherapy is to intervene on those family patterns that are dysfunctional and to reinforce other patterns that are more useful for the good development of a structured family climate.

Stay in Philadelphia: growth of structural family therapy

The reputation of Salvador Minuchin and his collaborators continued to grow until he became the director of a child guidance clinic in Philadelphia (USA), which under his direction grew to become one of the most reputable family therapy clinics in the world. (USA), which under his direction grew to become one of the most reputable family therapy clinics in the world.

Among his collaborators at the center, the role of Braulio Montalvo and Jay Hayley stood out; both were part, together with Minuchin, of the development and consolidation of the structural family therapy model.

When 1975 arrived, Minuchin decided to leave his position as director of the clinic to dedicate himself to teaching his model of psychotherapy to other professionals in many countries, so that in the 1980s, structural family therapy became a model of family therapy. In the 1980s, structural family therapy became the most widely practiced systematic model of psychotherapy in the world..

Since Minuchin's clinic had an agreement with the Philadelphia hospital, he was able to work on numerous cases with families of children suffering from various psychological problems, where he was able to corroborate his theoretical hypotheses on family structures in which he postulated that maladaptive patterns within the family were conducive to the development and worsening of the child's symptoms, and could be redirected through family therapy.

New stage in New York: founding of a family therapy center

In 1984 Minuchin moved back to New York, where he founded a family therapy center while continuing to teach his model of psychotherapy to other professions. to other professions.

There he studied the dynamics of violence and the recovery process of a multitude of clinical cases through various phases of family development. He was also in charge of carrying out several projects to help underprivileged families and to deal with young people who were abusing some kind of drug.

Years of residence in Boston

Minuchin and his family next moved to Boston in 1996, where his children and granddaughter lived.. During his residence in Boston, he was hired to supervise other therapists working with families in their homes. It is as a result of his work that he publishes the book "Pobreza, institución y familia" (Poverty, institution and family) together with Patricia Minuchin and Jorge Colapinto.

Residence in Florida: last stage of her life

Minuchin's last change of residence took place in 2004, when he moved to Florida, where he continued to teach his model of family therapy and at the same time continued his work as a disseminator of this model through books.

At the age of 92, Minuchin continued his pedagogical work on the structural family therapy model that he had been developing for more than 5 decades, when he started at the Wiltwyck Center (New York).when he started at the Wiltwyck (New York) center.

He died at the age of 96 in the town known as Boca Raton, located in Palm Beach County, Florida (USA), leaving an extremely important legacy in psychotherapy and, more specifically, in the models of systemic family therapy, which endures to this day.

Salvador Minuchin's most outstanding works

The following is a review of some of Salvador Minuchin's some of the main works on family psychotherapy developed by Minuchin, in chronological order. in chronological order.

• "Families and Family Therapy", in 1979.
• Together with Charles H. Fishman, he elaborated "Family therapy techniques", in 1984.
• "Family Kaleidoscope: Images of Violence and Healing", in 1985.
• Collaborating with Michael Nichols, "The Recovery of the Family: Stories of Hope and Renewal", in 1994.
• "The Art of Family Therapy", published in 1998.
• Together with Patricia Minuchin and Jorge Colapinto, he wrote "Poverty, Institution and Family", in 2000.