A fundamental theoretical premise in structural family therapy (SFT) is that changes in individual members and improvements in intra-familial relations are realized by repairing the family structure. Problems in family relations are conceptualized in terms of individuals taking on inappropriate roles (e.g., children acting as if they were parents) and the boundaries between parental executive levels and the children/sibling level being unclear, too rigid or highly permeable. The therapist's

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... is to temporarily engage (join) with the family members in a way that generates in-session interactions that may exemplify a more desirable family structure. While the theory supporting these interventions is well developed, there has been little work done on explicating how such tasks may be interactively accomplished in clinical practice. We show how a master therapist in SFT accomplishes some of these transformations during a single therapy session with a mother and daughter. Drawing from the methods of conversation analysis (CA), we focus on the discursive resources through which the therapist is able to readjust the role relationships between the mother and her daughter (i.e., in such a way that the mother can adopt a more agentive position vis-a-vis her children) and how the therapist's actions index core SFT principles of restructuring the family.