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The psychotherapeutic component of Pinsof Family Systems embodies Bill Pinsof’s psychotherapy with individuals, couples and families. Bill has been doing psychotherapy since his first years in graduate school in the early 1970s through his 41 years at the Family Institute (of Chicago) at Northwestern University. His approach to psychotherapy was initially codified in his book, Integrative Problem Centered Therapy: A Synthesis of Family, Individual and Biological Therapies, published by Basic Books in 1995. That approach has been elaborated over the last twenty plus years with Bill’s colleagues at the Family Institute, with whom he published his newly renamed approach, Integrative Systemic Therapy: Metaframeworks for Psychotherapy with Families, Couples and Individuals.
 

Approach

Integrative Systemic Therapy is a psychotherapeutic perspective that transcends and integrates the predominant models (e.g. cognitive behavior therapy, emotionally focused therapy, psychodynamic therapy, etc.) in contemporary psychotherapy. It integrates the most effective elements from the different therapeutic models, including psychopharmacology, into a coherent and cost effective metamodel.

In its essence, the approach is very simple: 

• Following the clients’ lead, the therapist identifies the clients’ presenting problems and the sequences of thoughts, feelings and behaviors in which the problems are embedded—the problem sequences.
• Collaboratively, the therapist identifies the alternative solution sequences that the clients would like to engage in to transform the problem sequences and constructively solve their problems.
• The therapist tries to help the clients as directly and simply as possible to implement these agreed upon solution sequences.
  • If the clients can do this, therapy is relatively short and simple.
  • If they cannot, the therapist and the clients explore and attempt to remove the constraints that prevent them from doing what they need to do to solve their problems. The exploration and removal of the constraints that prevent implementing the solution sequence, can, if necessary, take clients back to their early life experiences or focus attention on biological constraints that may require medication or some form of biofeedback.

Integrative Systemic Therapy goes as far back or as deep as necessary to help clients resolve their presenting problems.

Integrative Systemic Therapy also transcends the boundaries between individual, couple and family therapy, by directly involving the people in the client’s lives who need to be involved. For instance, the husband of a very anxious wife would be invited to participate in her therapy to help facilitate understanding and change. Similarly, the parents and siblings of an adolescent girl struggling with transgender issues would be invited to participate in her therapy. 

Case Study

A husband and his wife come in for therapy because of their troubled communication and lack of intimacy. The therapist begins by hearing each partner’s description of their poor communication and lack of intimacy, transforming their narratives into concrete descriptions of withdrawal and avoidant sequences. The therapist then encourages and, if necessary, teaches them right in  the session to talk directly to each other about their “hot issues,” without exploding or withdrawing. The three of them also agree that the couple will spend time together doing things that are fun and pleasurable before their next session. If the couple can do these “experiments” successfully, their therapy can be brief and limited. If they can’t, the therapist and the couple will need to dig into the web of constraints that prevents them doing what they need to do to resolve their problems. Ultimately, the goal is to help the couple lift the constraints (e.g. his depression, her fear of conflict, their common fear of sexual failure, etc.) that emerge as road blocks to change. 

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