Since not all changes affect all family members, and changes in one individual are not going to affect the rest of his or her family, it seems families can use whatever methods facilitate smooth functioning. Then, what is the definition of family and how family therapists help families when problems do arise? A family is an aggregate of individuals, and family therapists have inevitably been dealing with individuals within families. Thus, it is somewhat challenging for family therapists to deal with the family as it requires seeing people as individuals and as part of a whole. Structural family therapy views a family as an aggregate of individuals that works in a system as a united whole. It presents a framework to help families modify their family structure or the underlying organization of family life. In structural family therapy, each individual becomes a subunit of his or her family as well as a member of different social contexts. This perspective helps families, as it grasps certain family patterns and focus on reciprocal relations within the family. Problems arise because of old habits, thus when those habits are change, the structure of family also can be changed. Structural family therapy is effective for treating various problems of families and members of families especially with anorexia nervosa, addiction, substance abuse problems, a troubled adolescent, or a marriage crisis.
Therapists insist that each family is basically unique no matter what characteristics they may share with other families. Through the lens of the above assumption, the family is seen as fundamentally resourceful and having a core of uniqueness that will determine how the family will change in therapy. Therapists also emphasize that it is possible to change family systems in a relatively short time by understanding families' unique characteristics and problems.
One of the main assumptions of