Family System

Family musical arrangementIdentifying Information Mr. Gil Buckman is 35 year-old European American Man. He is Married with 3 Children living in the home. The Buckmans are expecting a baby in February. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Presenting or Identified Problem Mr. Buckman is seeking services to suffice spike his family system. His primary concern is that his son Kevin age 9 is having difficulty in school and suffering from an emotional disturbance. Mr. Buckman feels Kevins struggles are a direct result of his parenting skills. Mr. Buckman is excessively struggling with a decision that must be made regarding his career. He wants to ensure his family stability but making partner may cost him clock time with his family. He would like to find another job but with a baby on the way he does not feel this is an option. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Medical archives in that respect are no known health risks. The Buckman family appears to be quite healthy.However, Gil reports that his father drinks quite heavily, mostly on special occasions and might possibly be an alcoholic. Kevin is seeing a psychiatrist for his emotional needs. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Immediate Family System The Buckman Home consists of the Client Gil Buckman, his wife Karen Buckman, and their 3 children Kevin, Taylor, and Justin. Karen is a 34 year-old, European American mother to Kevin age 9, Taylor Age 6, and Justin age 3. She is also expecting a baby. All of the children are the biological offspring of Gil and Karen and share their Ethnicity.The Spousal SubsystemGil and Karen have difficulty communication at times. Gil resents Karen for not telling him about the pregnancy sooner. Karen thinks Gil is blaming her for getting pregnant. Women have choices, Men have responsibility. They maintain a healthy perk up life and correlative belief systems. (Pellebon, 2009)Sibling SubsystemKevin Taylor and Justin have petty arguments and antagonize each other. Kevin resents having to care for his younger siblings and often replies why do I have to do e reallything? when asked to help his siblings. (Pellebon, 2009)Parent/Child SubsystemGil is a doting father. He tries to rectify his own relationship with his father by being a better parent. He communicates tumesce with his kids, keeping an open dialogue. He has a very macho type relationship with Kevin, while he is more nurturing with his daughter Taylor. Karen admits that they were more overprotective with Kevin when he was younger and less anxious with Justin. (Pellebon, 2009)Parent/Grandparent SubsystemGil and his father have a strained relationship. Gill is bitter that his father was neglectful. uncivil realizes he has made mistakes and is stretch out to Gil. coarse also feels his son is a better father than he was. Recently hes been learning to communicate with Gil. He previously was more overtone to Larry. (Pellebon, 2009)Extended Family System not in home Mr. Buckmans Grandmother age 88 lives with his Parents Frank age 64 and Mar ilyn age 63. Grandma has been uprooted since the visit of Frank and Marilyns youngest son Larry and his son Cool. The Buckmans are of European American Descent. Cool Buckman is bi-racial. His ethnicity is both European and African American. Gil has an older sister Helen, who is a single mom to Julie and Gary. He has a younger sister Susan who is married to Nathan and they have a daughter named Patty. The youngest sibling discussed earlier is Larry.The Buckman family is enmeshed with open dialogue. Family roles are clear with the occasional splay boundary. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Peer Relationships and Impairment Mr. Buckman is deeply rooted in his family. They have limited community involvement, Gil coaches his sons little league and Karen babysits children in the neighborhood. He has strained work relationships collect to his lack of socializing in order to be with his family. His work and family responsibilities dont allot much free time for social networking. This can cause a s hortage in support systems. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Environmental Factors Gil plant life outside the home. Karen stays home with the children. They live in a two story suburban home fixed in a very clean middle- class neighborhood. The home is modern and well furnished. Little financial struggle yet maintain a gibe budget. Gil and Karen seemed very chaotically connected to Gils family. They get on with their neighbors and the community. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Educational/ Vocational/ Employment History and Impairment Mr. Buckman chose to college instead of taking over his fathers business. He works in financial firm. His need to help his son is taking away from his ability to perform well in employment (Grazer Howard, 1989)Legal History Mr. Buckman does not have a criminal record nor has he sought legal services or been sued. His younger brother has a gambling addiction and has been complex with illegal racketeering. His niece Julie was arrested for panhandling. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Resources Gil Buckman sought services to help with his son, so he and his immediate family would be the Client System. However the extended Buckman Family are so enmeshed that it is cloggy to separate them. Therefore we will consider them to be a Target System. There is a tremendous transference of intrinsic and outside energy amidst these two systems. Extrinsically, they spend a great deal of time with each other, helping with family events and combining resources such as serving dishes. Also they share in the responsibility of caring for Grandma. Intrinsically, their emotional responses add to the support the family provides. There are few boundaries in what is acceptable conversation. (Pellebon, 2009)The School and Child Psychologist would be the Action System in helping with Kevins emotional needs. However it is met with resistance from Gil, who fears the stigma of special education and feels responsible for causing the tension. He believes he has the potential energy to do work the problems within his own family subsystem. His intrinsic attempts to be there for him emotionally and mentally have proved futile. So he moved toward a more extrinsic approach by spending money on a psychiatrist and spending time coaching his sons baseball team. At this point Mr. Buckman feels he has feeble these resources and seeks services elsewhere. (Pellebon, 2009)Special Circumstances The Buckman family has no religious affiliation. There are also no known physical or mental health problems. There appears to be a great deal of tension within the family and Kevin suffers from an emotional disturbance. Frank Buckman has been known to abuse alcohol. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Life Area Impairments Gil feels his fathers drinking causes some superfluity at weddings and family fucntions. However no one has intervened. They make light of it and go on. Kevins emotional issues have put a great deal of added pressure on the family. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Cognitive Affective and Behavioral Functioning Gil is college educated and quite intelligent. Has strong cognitive abilities but does not handle stress or tension well. He becomes very irritable and irrational. He raises his voice to his family and uses a negative tone. He does not have much confidence in his parenting skills as he has bitterness toward his own father. Mr. Buckman is generally content except when dealing with family or work. He tries to be nonchalant until he feels his ability to handle responsibilities is threatened. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Positive ReinforcementFrank knows Larry is gambling and gives him money to help covering his losses. He is reinforcing the behavior to gamble even when Larry loses he is rewarded with more money from his father. (Pellebon, 2009)Negative ReinforcementNathan did not allow Patty to attend preschool and limited her time with Gils kids. He believed that removing these social influences would increase her ability to learn and maintain her extreme intelligence . (Pellebon, 2009)Positive PunishmentGrandma notices Gil is strain and arguing with Karen. So she tells a story of her first roller coaster ride using it as metaphor for life. She in a sense scolds Gil for getting disorderliness hoping to contain his ranting. (Pellebon, 2009)Negative Punishment The family shares extrinsically, giving and combining resources but when Larry comes for a visit they are guarded with their money. They believe withholding money from Larry will stop his erratic spending behavior. (Pellebon, 2009)Respondent Conditioning Gil felt abandoned by Frank. Frank would take him to a baseball game every year and cash in ones chips him with an usher leaving him feeling abandoned by his Dad. Even as an adult baseball games trigger sad memories and feelings of abandonment. (Ashford, LeCroy, Lortie, 2006)HabituationThe Buckman family learns to bond and communicate by the routine of tucking the children into bed every night. Saying goodnight and I love every night cre ates a habit of showing care and affection. (Ashford, LeCroy, Lortie, 2006)ModelingGil spends time with his kids and communicates with them in order to model good parenting skills. He hopes that by being a good parent that his kids will grow up to be good parents. He was not aware that his father was also observing and learning to be a better parent. (Ashford, LeCroy, Lortie, 2006)Vicarious LearningKaren learns that her sister-in-law Susan would give her husband Nathan oral sex in the car when he would get tense. Later when in the car with Gil when he is tense she attempts to calm him down in the same manner. (Pellebon, 2009)Strengths and Weakness Gil Buckman is very motivated to make a positive impact on his family. He doesnt cope well with stress. However he is eager to implement change in his life. He lacks self control yet he is resourceful and goal oriented. He is assertive, and willing to preserve in order to meet the needs of his family. Mr. Buckman gets along well with oth ers, yet has limited ties to his community. What little involvement he has is positive, he has effect peer relationships. (Grazer Howard, 1989)Multidimensional AssessmentMr. Buckman has the capabilities to utilize resources provided to him. He has adequate kernel to meet the needs of his family. His readiness to implement change will assist him in his preparation to care for Kevins emotional problems.