Answer

Often, people with certain kind of problems, for example eating disorders or specific relationship difficulties, refuse to see a therapist and  firmly resist any kind of intervention.  In such cases, the family, if adequately directed, can perform a fundamental and critical role in the treatment of the disorder.

In this kind of situation, the strategic therapist, usually meets with the family members that are suffering from the problem during a first session (even if they are not the “bearers” of the disorder), in order to evaluate with them what could be done to intervene. In function of the problem, the strategic therapist will choose between two strategies: either provide the family members guidance on how to bring the problem “bearer” into the therapeutic process; or provide them concrete prescriptions on how to behave relative to the person and the problem at hand. In this second case, the strategic therapy will become a kind of indirect therapy. In some cases the “identified patient” decides to go into therapy, in other cases, the therapy proceeds in an indirect manner.