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Family Therapy Theories & the novel Sophie's World

This paper uses the families in Jostein GaarderÆs (1996) novel, SophieÆs World to examine several marriage and family therapy theories found in Diane R. Gehart and Amy R. TuttleÆs (2003) Theory-Based Treatment Planning for Marriage and Family Therapists and theory-based treatment planning as outlined in Dorothy Stroh Becvar and Raphael J. BecvarÆs (2003) Family Therapy. While the novel focuses on providing an elementary introduction to the history of philosophy, the dual heroines of the book and their parallel families offer fascinating case studies of two marriages and two families in need of therapeutic help.

Sophie Amundsen is 14 years old, just about to turn 15. She is an only child, living in an isolated house on the edge of a suburb near the woods with her working mother. Her father, the captain of an oil tanker, spends much of his time at sea. Sophie is a latchkey child, walking home after school each day with her friend Joanna to a house usually inhabited only by her pets. Sophie turns out to be the fictional invention of the absent father of another girl, Hilde Moller Knag, who is just one day older and who also lives in an isolated house with a mother who is preoccupied with her work and a father who spends much of his time out of town. While neither case is of a family in real crisis, both could benefit from therapeutic attention.

Both families present interesting and similar case studies for a marriage and family therapist, and several different theoretical approaches might be useful in developing a treatment plan, including several which have different family theories as their basis. As Gehart and Tuttle (2003) observe, ôTheory-based treatment planning is anchored in the therapistÆs therapeutic model . . . [which] inspires a careful and rich case conceptualization beyond basic behavioral problemsö (p. 5).

One such approach which is especially appropriate to consider is narrative therapy, which Ge...

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Family Therapy Theories & the novel Sophie's World. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 17:45, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702404.html