Family Therapy Essay

The counselor is not to accept nor approve of the values of a client who is in therapy. Having disagreement or not accepting the client’s values should not affect if the client is accepted as a person. The client’s values and how the issues associated with their values establish an issue in counseling the families of others. In family therapy as well as any other type of therapy session, the counselor should remain neutral. As therapist we should not impose our value systems on clients.

We should also avoid impressing our own philosophies on clients. We also must not attempt the egotistical and self-defeating task of guiding men and women without an ever-growing, flexible, rich system of values of our own. In my personal opinion, no individual’s philosophy is suitable for another individual. A life perspective which rejects or does not incorporate the basic universal values is not an acceptable or practical philosophy for presence in a society. “A wise man’s sharing of a philosophy of life. But sharing is one thing, and instructing or guiding is another (Murphy, 1955).”

As a counselor we should not enforce our values on clients. We can consider the ethics, viewpoint, and values of each and every client and we are also able to express our own values but only at the client’s

A therapist needs to be open-mined in counseling families in which are from a different background, culture, or religion because biases can easily crop up. We tend to naturally judge others who are not similar to ourselves and as a counselor this can hinder the effectiveness and counseling process. Being aware of these biases in family therapy can create an atmosphere for effective therapy to happen. Beutler, Crago, and Arizmendi (1986) recently noted that “many authors are urging therapists both to attend to their own religious and attitudinal systems and to be aware of the potential value of those of their clients (p.