Carl Whitaker's Atheoretical Model

Carl Whitaker felt that families were changed by their experiences rather than through education and that many experiences happen outside of individuals’ consciousness; this belief led to his creation of an atheoretical model of therapy that focuses on allowing events and interactions to occur in a natural and authentic manner (Becvar & Becvar, 2013). As part of this approach the therapist must share his/her authentic self with his/her patients as well as with him/herself because by being real and honest the therapist is able to model behaviors that he/she hopes the clients will develop in their own lives; for this to be effective the therapist must ensure that he/she is responsive to the family but does not become responsible for them and/or
This then allowed the therapist to move into the second battle for initiative, meaning that he/she explains that the family is responsible for treatment and its outcomes, by communicating these facts the therapist puts him/herself in control of the battle for structure and the family in charge of the battle for initiative (Guise, 2015). With these beliefs in mind a therapist working with Barbara and Bill must clearly communicate the expectations regarding how often they should meet, who should be at each session (Whitaker preferred two or three generations participate in therapy, so he’d want to include the couple’s children and possibly parents), and then the therapist must regulate the interactions between family members (Becvar & Becvar, 2013; Guise,
The next step is for the clinician to clearly define the goals of treatment and acquire the family’s permission and agreement to the goals and treatment plan (Gehart, 2014). Then the initial phase relating to client goals may commence with the primary goal of showing authentic emotions with one another and raising the level of acceptance towards one another to lessen the impact of external stressors; during this phase play and “craziness” encourages the clients to be fully present in the moment focusing on authentic emotions; during these interactions Brenda may feel comfortable enough to share her thoughts and feelings that may be causing her distress such as her grandfather’s illness, her mother’s new job, moving into a new home, and the attention her brother is getting while being toilet trained (Gehart, 2014; Guise, 2015). Following the initial phase is the symbolic-experiential working phase; this is when the family is asked to minimize relational interactions that are overly rigid while simultaneously increasing their role flexibility in order to minimize conflict within the system. At this time the family also will use a here-and-now exercise to reduce fears, this would be especially valuable to