Enactments In Structural Family Therapy

What is An Enactment In Structural Family Therapy? 

An enactment in structural family therapy is a live, in-session interaction that the therapist deliberately constructs to observe and reshape how family members relate to one another. Rather than asking clients to describe a problem, the therapist asks them to engage with it directly in the room. This technique gives the therapist access to real relationship data, not filtered accounts. It is used with couples, parent-child dyads, and multi-generational family systems across a wide range of presenting concerns.

Structural family therapists use enactments to assess transactional patterns as they happen, not as clients remember them.

Enactments serve distinct clinical purposes:

• Reveal how the family actually communicates under pressure
• Expose boundary violations, coalition patterns, and hierarchy problems in real time
• Create conditions where the therapist can interrupt and redirect dysfunctional sequences
• Allow the family to practice a new interactional pattern before the session ends
• Produce observable data that informs every subsequent intervention

Therapists who use enactments consistently leave sessions with clearer structural maps and more targeted plans for change.

What Goes Into An Enactment In Family Therapy?

An enactment in family therapy follows a structured sequence that moves the therapist from director to observer to evaluator within a single clinical episode. Each phase serves a distinct purpose and requires a different therapist stance. Understanding the structure helps clinicians apply the technique deliberately rather than reactively.

Structural family therapists organize enactments across three operational phases.

Each phase builds on the one before it:

• Initiate by naming the issue and giving a clear directive for family members to speak directly to one another
• Reposition chairs so clients face each other, removing the therapist as the default communication target
• Withdraw to the periphery once the interaction begins, shifting into an active observational role
• Intervene selectively to block deflection, encourage silent members, or push past the family's habitual stopping point
• Close with a focused summary that names what the family did, what got in the way, and what shifted

Therapists who follow this structure consistently gather cleaner observational data and create more precise entry points for structural intervention.

More Structural Family Systems Techniques

Spontaneous & Simple

These initiate direct contact between family members with minimal setup. The therapist asks what the problem is, then looks away — removing themselves as the audience and forcing the family to speak to one another. Moving chairs serves the same function: a physical cue that redirects communication away from the therapist.

Parenting & Behavioral

These shift focus from the child's behavior to the parents' executive capacity. When a mother described her five-year-old as uncontrollable, the therapist waited for the child to act out, then instructed the mother to organize the children herself. The father was blocked from stepping in. The therapist observed whether the mother could set limits without support — and what happened when she tried.

Family Interaction Enactment

These use a specific task to reveal power dynamics in real time. Asking a family to plan a meal together — one meat, two vegetables, a drink, and a dessert, agreed on by everyone — exposes who leads, who defers, and whether parents hold thae generational boundary. Quick agreement often signals the opposite of harmony: parents yielding to children to avoid conflict.

Salvador Minuchin Enactment Godfather

Salvador Minuchin described the enactment as asking the family to "dance in his presence" — a deliberate shift from listening to what families say about their problems to watching how they actually behave with one another in the room.

Minuchin built the enactment out of a clinical distrust of family narratives. Families present themselves as they want to be seen, not as they are. Direct interaction bypasses that filter.

Four principles shaped how Minuchin understood and used enactments:

• Doing reveals more than describing — live interaction exposes the process of a problem, not just its content
• The therapist functions as stage director, constructing scenarios that either confirm structural limitations or surface hidden relational resources
• Blocking and prolonging are active clinical tools — the therapist interrupts familiar patterns and holds the family in the interaction past the point where they would normally stop
• Enactment is simultaneously assessment and intervention, observing the transactional field while changing it in real time

In his later work, Minuchin moved enactment beyond technique. He described it as a pervasive clinical attitude — a constant readiness to engage the family in live transactions rather than in therapist-led interrogation.

That reframe matters. It means the enactment is not something a structural therapist occasionally does. It is how a structural therapist consistently thinks.

How To Use An Enactment

Using an enactment means moving the family from reporting their problems to demonstrating them — and then directing that demonstration toward a different outcome. The therapist structures each phase with a clear clinical purpose.

Enactments follow three sequential phases, each requiring a distinct therapist role.

Phase 1: Initiation The therapist identifies a relevant conflict, frames it as a relational pattern rather than an individual fault, and gives a specific directive — naming who speaks, to whom, and about what. Chairs are repositioned so family members face each other. Once the interaction begins, the therapist leans back, moves away, or looks at the floor, removing themselves as the default audience.

Phase 2: Facilitation The therapist functions as a stage director, not a mediator. Key moves include:

• Block third parties from interrupting or triangulating into the dyad
• Prolong the interaction past the point where the family would normally stop or deflect
• Coach communication directly when the exchange becomes repetitive or destructive
• Increase intensity if the family is avoiding genuine contact with the issue

Phase 3: Closing The therapist ends the enactment with a clear signal, then summarizes the process — not the content. Name what was observed, identify what disrupted the interaction, and reinforce any moment where the family communicated differently than usual.

Consistent use of this structure gives therapists a repeatable method for generating real clinical data and creating conditions for structural change.