ABSTRACT
The family therapist uses assessment tools to understand the nature of the family's organization and process as well as its strengths and weaknesses. This tool can help the therapist assess a family system from a number of different perspectives. The model is four-dimensional in several ways. The concept of four-dimensional space has, of course, been around for a long time. The historical dimension is essential to the therapy because it provides information regarding the chronicity and severity of the family system's dysfunction. One of the most useful assessment tools available to the family therapist is the concept of the homeostatic maintainer, the individuals or social forces that are maintaining a given problem and must therefore be included in the treatment. There are many therapeutic techniques in structural family therapy that are useful in working with adolescents and their families: Boundary Making; Enactment; Unbalancing; Reframing; Search for Competence; and Intensity.
