Experiential Versus Narrative Family Therapies Assignment ✓ Solved

Experiential Versus Narrative Family Therapies Assignment: I

In a 3-page paper, address the following: Summarize the key points of both experiential family therapy and narrative family therapy. Compare experiential family therapy to narrative family therapy, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each. Provide a description of a family for which experiential family therapy would be appropriate, explain why, and justify your response using learning resources. Include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. Part 2: Develop a genogram for the client family selected extending back at least three generations (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents).

Paper For Above Instructions

Title Page

Title: Experiential Versus Narrative Family Therapies — Comparative Analysis and Clinical Application

Author: Student Name

Course: Family Therapy

Date: 2025

Introduction

This paper summarizes the core principles of Experiential Family Therapy (EFT) and Narrative Family Therapy (NFT), compares their theoretical rationales and clinical techniques, highlights strengths and limitations of each approach, and identifies a clinical case in which EFT is particularly appropriate. A genogram extending three generations is also presented for the selected family to support assessment and treatment planning.

Summary of Key Points

Experiential Family Therapy (EFT)

Experiential Family Therapy emphasizes emotional expression, enactment, creativity, and corrective emotional experiences to foster growth and strengthen relational bonds (Russell & Gills, 2017). Therapists encourage role play, psychodrama, movement, art, and guided imagery to access affective states and amplify authentic responses within the family system (Spencer, Call, & Hardy, 2018). The therapeutic aim is to mobilize suppressed emotion, enhance spontaneity, and restructure maladaptive relational patterns through direct experience rather than cognitive analysis alone (Russell & Gills, 2017).

Narrative Family Therapy (NFT)

Narrative Family Therapy frames problems as separate from persons and uses externalization and re-authoring techniques to change the meaning of difficulties (White & Epston, 1990). Clients are invited to tell and reshape life stories, identifying exceptions to problem-saturated narratives, and building preferred identities and practices (Besley, 2002). The therapist collaborates as a respectful conversational partner who highlights client competencies and helps communities of meaning develop alternative narratives that support adaptive functioning (Duarte, 2019).

Comparison: Strengths and Weaknesses

Commonalities

Both EFT and NFT value clients' voices and relational contexts; both seek to shift patterns that maintain distress and both are systemic in orientation (Nichols & Davis, 2020). Each approach fosters client agency: EFT through embodied emotional processes and NFT through narrative shifts that reframe identity.

Distinctive Strengths

EFT’s strengths include rapid access to emotion, opportunities for corrective emotional experiences, and usefulness when nonverbal expression is central to the presenting problem (Russell & Gills, 2017). EFT can catalyze experiential insight and immediate relational change, particularly in families with alexithymia or chronic avoidance (Jungers & Gregoire, 2013).

NFT’s strengths lie in its collaborative, nonpathologizing stance and its capacity to reduce stigma by externalizing problems, enabling clients to claim resilience and construct empowering meanings (White & Epston, 1990; Duarte, 2019). NFT is versatile across cultural contexts because it privileges clients’ own narratives and values (Besley, 2002).

Limitations

EFT may be less effective if family members are highly defensive, unwilling to engage in embodied techniques, or if intense affect provokes dysregulation without adequate containment (Russell & Gills, 2017). Also, therapists inexperienced in somatic or expressive modalities risk superficial enactments (Spencer et al., 2018).

NFT can be limited when immediate emotional regulation or corrective relational practice is needed; narrative work’s emphasis on dialogue and meaning-making may be less effective where behavioral change and emotional processing are primary clinical goals (Minuchin, 1974). Additionally, NFT relies on client verbalization and reflective capacity, which may constrain utility with less verbal families or younger children (White & Epston, 1990).

Clinical Application: Family Description and Justification for EFT

Client description: The Hernandez household includes a married couple in their mid-40s (H.B. and J.), two adolescent children, and a matriarchal grandmother (G) who exerts controlling influence. Ongoing conflict centers on financial secrecy, mistrust, and intergenerational trauma stemming from Grandmother G’s history of abandonment and strict control. Communication has become guarded; emotional expression is suppressed; interactions escalate into heated confrontations with unresolved hurt. The couple reports dwindling intimacy and escalating avoidance.

Rationale for selecting EFT: This family presents core features suited to experiential interventions: suppressed affect, avoidance of direct emotional expression, and a history of intergenerational trauma enacted in current patterns. EFT techniques (e.g., role-play of intergenerational scenes, enactment of financial conversations, guided imagery to access underlying emotions) can safely externalize and process longstanding hurt, provide corrective emotional experiences between spouses, and create embodied shifts in relational responsiveness (Russell & Gills, 2017; Jungers & Gregoire, 2013).

Justification with evidence: Research and clinical literature indicate that experiential modalities are effective in increasing emotional expressiveness and strengthening attachment-related bonds in families where affective constriction maintains dysfunction (Russell & Gills, 2017; Spencer et al., 2018). EFT’s focus on enactment enables family members to rehearse new interactional patterns (e.g., transparent financial discussions) and to experience validation and repair—critical processes for families with trust ruptures (Jungers & Gregoire, 2013).

Treatment Plan Outline

  1. Assessment and safety planning; build alliance and containment skills (sessions 1–2).
  2. Experiential enactments focusing on financial and intergenerational scenes, with modeling of emotional regulation (sessions 3–6).
  3. Art-based and movement exercises to access nonverbal affect and increase empathy (sessions 7–10).
  4. Integration of new relational practices, relapse prevention, and narrative re-authoring of family values (sessions 11–14).

Part 2: Genogram (three generations)

The genogram below is presented textually. Symbols: M = male, F = female. Bracketed notes indicate salient issues.

  • Great-Grandparents (deceased)
    • GGF1 (M) — deceased
    • GGF1's spouse (F) — deceased
    • GGF2 (M) — deceased
    • GGF2's spouse (F) — deceased
  • Grandparents
    • Maternal Grandmother: Grace (F) — controlling, history of abandonment in her generation (significant influence)
    • Maternal Grandfather: (M) — deceased
    • Paternal Grandmother: (F) — deceased
    • Paternal Grandfather: (M) — deceased
  • Parents (current generation)
    • Mother: J (F) — influenced by Grace, secretive about finances
    • Father: H.B. (M) — mistrustful, frustrated by financial secrecy
  • Children
    • Daughter: Janet (F) — adolescent, observes parental conflict
    • Son: Daniel (M) — adolescent, internalizing behavior

Clinical notes: Intergenerational pattern of abandonment/control (Grace) appears to shape J’s financial secrecy and hypervigilance; family-of-origin influences are central to treatment targets (Nichols & Davis, 2020).

Summary

Experiential and narrative family therapies offer complementary pathways for relational repair. EFT excels at accessing and restructuring emotional processes through enactment and corrective experience, making it well-suited for families with suppressed affect and intergenerational trauma. NFT provides powerful tools for meaning-making and identity reformulation through externalization and re-authoring. In the Hernandez family, EFT is recommended initially to address intense affective constriction and rebuild trust, with later integration of narrative techniques to consolidate new meanings and practices (Russell & Gills, 2017; White & Epston, 1990).

References

  • Besley, A. C. (2002). Foucault and the turn to narrative therapy. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 30(2), 125–143.
  • Duarte, L. F. (2019). Witnessing in narrative couple and family therapy. Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy, 1–4.
  • Jungers, C., & Gregoire, J. (Eds.). (2013). Counseling Ethics: Philosophical and Professional Foundations. Springer Publishing.
  • Minuchin, S. (1974). Families & Family Therapy. Harvard University Press.
  • Nichols, M. P., & Davis, S. D. (2020). Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods (11th ed.). Pearson.
  • Russell, K., & Gills, H. L. (2017). Experiential therapy in the mental health treatment of adolescents. Journal of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, 4(1), 53–66.
  • Spencer, T., Call, T., & Hardy, N. (2018). Experiential Family Therapy. In Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy (pp. 1–6). Springer.
  • Suddeath, E. G., Kerwin, A. K., & Dugger, S. M. (2017). Narrative family therapy: Practical techniques for more effective work with couples and families. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 39(2), 132–148.
  • White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. W. W. Norton & Company.
  • American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (2019). AAMFT Practice Brief: Cultural humility and systemic practice. AAMFT Publications.

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