A Paradoxical Family Therapy For Senior High School Students Who are Going to Give Up the School Course

Abstract

　　In Japan over 90% of youngsters who graduate from junior high schools go to senior high schools. In. spite of high rate of going to senior high school, over 120,000 senior high school students drop out of schools every year. A student’s leaving school part way often brings his/her family to a critical situation.

　　I have tried to help them to solve the problems that prevented them from finding new careers by means of MRI-type of family therapy. Two cases about them are shown here. It is confirmed that this type of paradoxical interventions were usefull for these cases.

　　The process and the result were as follows; Their parents were present at some sessions and exchanged letters with me. At first the father was indifferent to his child’s school life and simply wanted him/her to continue to go to school as ever. Because of the father’s attitude, the relationship between the mother and the son/daughter became stronger. The mother took full responsibility to solve her child’s problems and found it impossible to deal with them by herself. Then the mother asked her husband to take part in the "batttle" and talked about their son’s/daughter’s future to each other. Improved relationship between the parents set their child at ease and enabled him/her to think about a new career constructively. By trying to overcome the critical situation the relationships among family members became stabler than ever.