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

A summary of the characteristics of strategic-communicative therapy and its objectives.

Within systemic psychological therapies there are several therapeutic models, all of them focused mainly on family therapy. The most prominent systemic models are narrative therapy, structural therapy, solution-focused therapy and strategic-communicative therapy, the latter being the therapy that will be discussed in this article.

The model of strategic-communicative therapy is framed within the systemic therapies that are mainly used for family therapies.It has emerged as a result of two paradigms at a 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-communicative therapy consists of, seeing also some of the main therapeutic techniques that psychologists use from this systemic approach.

What is the Strategic-Communicative Therapy model?

The strategic-communicative therapy model is a systemic model of psychological therapy. The history of the development of this model of therapy begins with Gregory Batesonan English anthropologist who emigrated to the United States and is considered to be the first systemic theorist.

Bateson was interested in the investigation of human relationships and began with the following theoretical paradigms: the theory of cybernetics and general systems theory (GST), which had been initially proposed by Ludwing von Bertalanffy.

Based on Bateson's research, the Mental Research Institute (MRI) was created in Palo Alto (California), where several theorists came to work, being the ones who managed to originate and expand the systemic approach, being these theorists Jay Haley, John Weakland, Paul Watzlawick, Virginia Satir and Don. D. Jackson.

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

Vision of the person from the systemic models

Systemic models, among which is the strategic-communicative therapy model, are based on the idea that the international context in which people develop is the most important variable to evaluate in psychotherapy when analyzing their behavior.behavior, even more important than any personality trait.

The fundamental idea of these systemic models is that a person puts into practice only a series of behaviors that are influenced by the context or environment in which he/she finds him/herself, being able to have different alternatives of behavior (for example, the same person can be more extraverted and generous when he/she is with friends, more shy when he/she has just met a person and selfish with his/her siblings). As we have seen, this was an example that shows different ways of behaving of the same person depending on different contexts.

Strategic-communicative therapy is based on the general theory of systems as a starting point when trying to evaluate and understand the functioning of various groups of people, including a group composed of family members. On the other hand, since the interaction between the members of a group of people is primarily communicational, strategic-communicative therapy is also based on the foundations of strategic-communicative theory. is also based on the fundamentals of human communication theory.. For this reason, we will briefly explain both theories below.

1. General systems theory

According to this theory, the model of strategic-communicative therapy is based on this theory, a system is constituted by a series of elements and also by rules that determine the relationships between the elements that make up the system.a.

It is important to point out that from this theory it is difficult to explain the global functioning of the system on the basis of the individual properties of each of the elements that make it up.

Based on this perspective, the family would be considered as a system and the members of this family would be the elements that constitute this system.. It should be taken into account that there are nuclear families, formed by parents and children only, and extended families, which also include grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, etc.

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

Theory of human communication

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

The first of these axioms basically states that. "it is impossible not to communicatesince when someone decides to remain silent, he or she is also transmitting a message, even if it is non-verbal.

The second refers to the fact that "any message can have two levels": content and relationship.. Let's look at an example by imagining the case of a mother who wants her son to make more effort in college and, therefore, tells him: "you must make more effort in the race and pass everything". According to the content level, 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 for your degree".

The third axiom is related to the idea that each person who is a participant in an interpersonal communication "has his or her own version of the facts", having seen things from his or her own point of view.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 that which is fundamentally verbal, while analog communication is basically non-verbal.

The fifth is based on the premise that "communicational interactions can be complementary or symmetrical.". A complementary interaction would be one in which there is a difference between the people involved, one of them having assumed power and being accepted by the other. When the interaction is symmetrical, the two people interacting are in a position of equality, although each one defends his point of view during a discussion.

Characteristics of the Strategic-Communicative Therapy model.

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

1. The fundamental objectives

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

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

2. The psychotherapist

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

Therefore, the psychotherapist is active, so that he/she is in charge of taking responsibility for the improvement and also of looking for ways to create small differences that allow to achieve a bigger change.

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

3. How to solve problems in the family system.

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

In order to achieve a strategic change within the strategic-communication therapy, the following ideas must be taken into account:

• To solve the problem you do not necessarily have to change people.
• Sometimes it is enough to introduce a small difference in the family system.
• Each therapeutic intervention must be unique for each family and adapted to each case.
• In order to solve the problem, it is possible to change a certain pattern of specific people.

4. Interventions of Haley's strategic therapy

From the strategic-communicative therapy model, several forms of intervention proposed by Haley can be used.

In the first place, there is direct interventionThis is when the therapist requests that something different be done in order to block the pattern of dysfunctional interactions.

Secondly, when indirect intervention is used, metaphorical tasks can be usedSecondly, when indirect intervention is used, metaphorical tasks can be used for situations in which the family has difficulty in directly addressing 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 ordeal intervention modality, the objective is to allow the person to make an effort to voluntarily do the symptom as in the paradoxical tasks, but this time he/she must associate it with a task that is bothersome to him/her.