Judicial social worker service case under structured family therapy model

I. Background of the case

Amin (pseudonym), male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1973, married, junior high school education, with his wife has a son and a daughter, the daughter is in the fifth grade of primary school, and the son is in the fourth grade of primary school.

In October 2020, he was sentenced to a suspended sentence by a people's court for committing intentional injury. On November 9, 2020, Amin reported to the Justice Bureau of the place of enforcement, and the judicial office of the place of enforcement was responsible for the daily management of his community corrections period.

On February 19, 2021, Amin's wife Ari (pseudonym) called the social worker to report that she had been subjected to domestic violence by Amin, and after an emergency treatment, the judicial social worker intervened in Amin and his family on a case-by-case basis to help improve the relationship between the husband and wife and accept community corrections with peace of mind.

2. Data Collection

(1) The level of family relations

Amin lives with his wife, son and daughter, who is 36 years old, her daughter is 12 years old, and she is in the fifth grade of primary school, and her son is 10 years old and is in the fourth grade of primary school.

The family living environment is general, the parent-child relationship gets along well (see Figure 1 Amin family structure diagram), but with his wife often quarrels over family trivia, according to Ah Li told the social worker that Amin has committed domestic violence against him more than once, and Amin likes to go out to drink with friends, as a wife, Amin often goes out to drink, and is basically quarrelsome.

After many conversations with Ali, the social worker learned that ali was angry about Amin's frequent outings to drink:

1. Worry that drinking alcohol is not good for health, the child is young, in case of health problems, only the whole family will be affected;

2. The cost of frequent drinking will also increase, the original family income is not much, if you do not control this unreasonable expenditure, it will bring economic burdens to the family.

In the interview with Amin, Amin told the social worker that he usually worked intensively, and the pressure on the family of 2 children was not small, so he needed to find friends to chat to relax his mood and relieve the pressure, and Ari always did not understand, every time he went out, he would be long-winded, and even quarreled in front of Amin's friends, which made Amin feel very faceless, and the relationship between husband and wife was always very tense. And the people who drink together are all former friends, and it is not easy to shirk the invitation of friends, worried about affecting the relationship between friends.

Figure 1 Amin family structure diagram

(2) The level of work income

Amin is engaged in the express delivery industry, because of his tall stature, can bear hardships and stand hard work, relying on his own diligence and monthly salary income can reach seven or eight thousand yuan. Ali works in the sales business and earns four or five thousand yuan a month.

Among them, Amin has more than 10,000 yuan in debt, insists on repaying on time every month, and the wage income of the husband and wife can basically meet the family expenses, but the family's daily living expenses are basically borne independently by the wife, and Amin does not share the cost of family expenses.

(3) The level of physical health

Amin had been caused by drug use, resulting in swelling of hands and feet, occasional pain. The rest of the family members are in good health.

Third, the problem analysis and estimation

Through data collection, it is understood that the risk factors that affect Amin's smooth passage through the correction period are mainly: due to family conflicts and domestic violence, Amin's acceptance of community corrections, and even lead to re-offending crimes; unpredictable situations due to drinking, and drinking is also the fuse of family conflicts.

(1) The communication method between husband and wife is simple and rigid

Due to the certain age gap between Amin and Ali (a difference of 11 years), Ali is also a "foreign daughter-in-law" who married over, and there are inevitably differences in values, lifestyles, language expressions, etc., resulting in simple and rigid communication in case of trouble, and easy to produce contradictions and conflicts.

(2) Amin is not good at controlling emotions

Amin often touches his anger because of communication problems with his wife, resulting in escalation of conflicts.

(3) Amin likes to drink

Amin would go out drinking with friends three or four nights a week, not only costing money, but according to his wife, it was easy to lose control after drinking.

4. Service Plan

(1) Theoretical basis

Family System Theory: Family system theory is a theory of human emotional activity and communicative behavior, which was proposed by Professor Murray Bowen, a well-known American psychotherapist, and was proposed by him and his assistant Mitchell Bowen. In explaining the emotional activity of human beings, the theory of the family system uniquely examines the whole family as an emotional unit, viewing people as elements in interrelated structures rather than as autonomous spiritual entities.

Think of the family as a complete unit, as a system, and family members as constituents of the system. Each member interacts with each other.

In this case, Amin's problem is not limited to his personal problems, but a system problem derived from family relations, if you do not start from the family problem to solve, it will only treat the symptoms and not the root cause, so we put Amin's problem needs in the situation of the whole family to solve.

(2) Service objectives

1. Overall objective:

Assist Amin to adjust to the family's problem behavior, explore more effective communication methods and problem-solving models, and finally achieve the good operation of the entire family system, promote the normal life and work of individuals, and successfully pass the correction period.

2. Sub-objectives:

(1) Assist Amin to learn anger emotion control management, so that Amin can learn to identify bad anger emotional characteristics and master the skills of controlling anger emotions, so as to improve conflict handling.

(2) Assist Amin and his wife to identify poor communication styles and understand each other's expectations, so as to improve each other's communication style and improve the self-esteem and sense of self-worth of both parties.

(3) Assist Amin to gradually reduce the number of drinks and establish the concept of healthy life.

5. Service strategy

(1) Family level

Improve the rigid communication style of the family (between husband and wife), assist Amin and his wife to reorganize their past verbal communication, guide them to recognize bad communication habits, promote good and effective communication between husband and wife, and re-accept each other.

(2) The individual level

Assist Amin to recognize the harm caused by frequent drinking, and the harm caused by bad emotions not being effectively controlled. Then, by guiding them to adjust their lifestyles, learn emotional management skills, and finally reduce the risk of family conflicts from the source.

Fifth, the service implementation process

(1) Reenactment of conflicts, presentation of the causes of outbreaks of family conflicts, and assistance in understanding each other's expectations

According to the estimated information collected, the reason for the fierce outbreak of each conflict between Amin and his wife is almost always because Amin goes out to drink, Amin's behavior conflicts with Ari's expectations, and Amin and Ari can not pay attention to each other's expectations, coupled with verbal stimulation, which eventually leads to the outbreak of contradictions.

The social worker first discusses the expectations for the family and family members with Amin and Ali in the form of a family meeting, and repeats the situation before and after the conflict broke out. "I know that you have always cared about this family, as husband and father, so that the family can become better, get up early every day, be diligent, just so that you can get more income every month.

As a wife and mother, I am diligent and frugal in running the family, saving money and thrift, and I also hope that family life can be better. But maybe because of the busy work and the complexity of the family, you don't have a good chance to really sit down and listen to each other's voices, so we will take this opportunity to talk about your thoughts and expectations today. ”

Under the guidance of the social worker, the husband and wife first fell into a short period of contemplation, and then Amin first said, "In fact, I like to drink two cups of this hobby, the daily work task is heavy, the pressure is high, from early busy to dark, back home you will always complain and accuse, I can only go out to drink with friends, chat, and relieve the unhappiness in my heart", hearing this Ali took over and said, "If you don't go out to drink often, spend money I will say you?"

Our two children want to go to school, all aspects of the cost are a lot, I want to save some money, slowly save up can also improve their lives, even after the children go to college, work we can also support some, but every time I see you go out to drink, spend a lot of money, sometimes drink too much back and lose your temper, you say so can I not be angry? ”

Through many repetitions and focusing, social workers control the scope of communication and emotions in this process, and Amin gradually realizes that his behavior is inappropriate and negative to the family, and he also understands Ali's intentions and expectations.

Similarly, Ali also said that "you work hard every day outside the home, but also have to bear the pressure, maybe I don't care enough about you." The family meeting with the assistance of the social worker can make Amin and his wife realize the love and expectation of the two parties for the family behind the contradiction, and said that they will pay more attention to each other's ideas and communicate more in the future.

The social worker further affirmed the effect of this communication, and hoped that they could think differently, care about each other's ideas, and communicate calmly in their future life and work.

(2) Assist Amin in learning emotional management and enhance problem-solving skills

Amin recounted that Ali was always at home talking to him, sometimes listening to it was very annoying, he was angry, responding to her with words, and the husband and wife did not give in to each other, and the verbal conflict became more and more intense, and sometimes even could not control the hands to beat Ari.

In response to Amin's narration and performance, the social worker summarized that "I can understand that in fact, you didn't want to argue with her in the first place, and beating people was not your original intention, right?" Amin responds with "Yes, I definitely don't want to argue, just annoyed", and then the social worker first expresses his understanding of the reason for his anger and continues to discuss with him the positive and negative effects of anger on him.

Finally, the social worker taught Amin some anger control techniques, including not responding to Ali's verbal stimuli for a while, waiting for each other to calm down and communicate; learning relaxation therapy, taking deep breaths when feeling that you are going to be angry, which can calm your emotions to a certain extent; paying attention to maintaining adequate sleep, drinking less, and developing good living habits can help prevent anger.

At the same time, social workers use self-disclosure techniques to share their experiences and methods of handling family conflicts with Amin to provide Amin with reference. After analysis, skill training and experience sharing, Amin was deeply touched and said that he would pay attention to his emotional changes in the future, try his best to control his emotional reactions, and be willing to make changes.

(3) Gradually reduce the number of drinks and cut off the fuse of contradictions

After interviews and exchanges, the social worker believes that there is no parent-child relationship in Amin's family, the main problem is in the husband and wife relationship (see Figure 1), and the disharmony of the husband and wife relationship is mainly caused by Amin's excessive outing for drinking, so the habit of drinking often is the fuse of the contradiction between husband and wife.

Therefore, in assisting Amin and Ari to understand each other's expectations of the original intention, improve the way of communication, guide Amin to learn emotional management and other intervention measures to alleviate the tension between husband and wife, can only play a role in "curing the symptoms", in order to achieve the "cure" effect, but also from reducing the number of times Amin drinks, completely cut off the root of the contradiction.

The social worker first relived Amin about Ali's fears about drinking, first by wasting money; second, by worrying about her health. Reminding Amin that his wife's starting point is for the sake of his family and his own health, Amin agrees with the social worker's point of view, while also reinforcing the motivation for change.

Subsequently, the social worker and Amin husband and wife take a monthly cycle to jointly determine the number of times that both parties can accept to drink in the next month, and the social worker and Ari jointly supervise Amin to complete the plan. The social worker adopts the plan agreed with Amin to gradually reduce the number of drinks to help Amin develop a good habit of "drinking and drinking".

The second step is to let Amin complete a certain amount of learning tasks every day by assigning homework, helping him to divert his attention and reduce the temptation to drink. After continuous observation and Ali's feedback, Amin was able to execute according to the plan, the number of drinks was significantly reduced, and he rarely went out to drink, and occasionally wanted to drink at home, Amin had a big change in this, and Amin was very pleased with Amin's change.

6. Evaluation methods and effectiveness

Social workers mainly evaluate the effectiveness of the entire service through observation and interview methods.

Through the continuous case-by-case follow-up of social workers, Amin and his family have changed a lot:

1. During the follow-up of the case, according to the observation records of the social worker and the feedback of Amin's wife, there was no fierce quarrel between the husband and wife before the intervention of the similar case, although occasionally the two sides would have a quarrel and complain, but there was no contradiction, and each other could control their emotions in time;

2. Under the supervision of the family and social worker, the frequency of Amin going out to drink has decreased significantly, Ali is very satisfied with this change, and gives a lot of encouragement to her husband's transformation, according to Amin's children and social workers, "Mom also bought a bottle of beer for Dad during the holiday", the encouragement and appreciation made by Amin shows that Amin's husband and wife communication style has been greatly improved, each other has learned to pay attention to each other's feelings and ideas, and Amin has also set a good example in front of the children.

3. Shortly after the family meeting, Amin paid attention to the fact that it was not easy for his wife to bear the daily expenses of the family alone, so he took the initiative to give 500 yuan to his wife as a living expense every month, which shows that Amin's sense of responsibility for the family has been enhanced. After the intervention of social workers, the goal of case counseling based on Amin's family was achieved and the case was successfully closed.

7. Professional reflection

Because community corrections subjects have made mistakes, in many cases they will cause certain harm to the family and cause certain estrangement from their families, so there are more or less family conflicts, and the existence of these contradictions will affect the community corrections subjects to accept community corrections to a certain extent and hinder their smooth return to society.

Therefore, when we provide case services for community corrections subjects, we should place more community corrections subjects in the whole family to observe and understand the interaction and communication of family members, so as to more accurately assess the real needs of community corrections subjects and provide practical case intervention solutions.

The theory of the family system provides us with a service framework for understanding the rules of the whole family operation, so that social workers can avoid falling into the dilemma of replacing the understanding of the whole family only for the individual of the community corrections subject.

In this case, the social worker was able to flexibly apply the treatment techniques of the structured family therapy model during the intervention, including:

1. Repeating, guiding the recurrence of the contradiction between the husband and wife;

2. Focus, in the process of family meeting discussion, social workers can better control the scope of expression of both parties, not to deviate from the pre-set topic;

3. Interaction so that the couple understands that their actions will affect other family members;

4. Emphasize the advantages, under the guidance of social workers, the husband and wife frankly express their expectations and original intentions for the family, highlighting the advantages of family members.

Author: Li Wanna, Wang Yongsong

Unit: Guangzhou Zengcheng District Heart Light Social Work Service Center

Source: "Social Work Library" WeChat public account