A lot of my time involved direct work with Emma and family sessions which involved weekly individual sessions with Emma and weekly family sessions. Part of the family therapy sessions was to help resolve some of the conflict between the family members', particularly between Emma and Mrs McArthy. Barker (2007) states that the identification of communication problems within families has been central to family therapy since its early days.

The conflict between Emma and Mrs McArthy had escalated over the last six months and if continued to do so would possibly have resulted in a crisis situation of family breakdown, resulting in Emma being homeless as she had no other family members to support her. Thus it was important that interventions I used were carefully thought out and applied in the correct manner. A lot of the conflict that occurred I believed was due to role confusion, as Emma was dictating the families dynamics and Dallos & Draper (2007) see central aspects of the family organisation to be the hierarchical structure – who is in charge, how decisions are made regarding various issues and difficulties which arise.