In Praise of Sneaky Poo: A Case,Four Whites,and a Missing Narrative

Sneaky Poo (1984) announced Michael White, the second order cyberneticist, to the world. But there were several versions of both Sneaky Poo and White. This paper pays homage to Sneaky and critiques White's contribution to family therapy. A recent case is reported.     

The Adolescent Family Life Program and Adoption Research

Abstract

The Office of Population Affairs administers the Adolescent Family Life Program. Authorized in 1981, the Adolescent Family Life Act funds adolescent pregnancy prevention programs as well as care programs for pregnant and parenting teens. It also funds research into related issues, including adoption. A primary purpose of the Adolescent Family Life Program is to develop and test approaches that encourage adoption as an alternative to abortion. However, both abortion and adoption rates have dropped since the program was instituted. While existing research has answered some of the questions surrounding adoption, there is need for additional research into the factors associated with adoption. The Office of Population Affairs is actively seeking creative, well-conceived proposals that address some of the as yet unanswered questions.     

Case‐Based Research in Family Therapy

Traditionally, case‐based research has not been considered as scientific by many in the field due to the lack of controlled conditions and objectivity. However, case‐study material may be more effective than once believed in educating family therapists. Future implications of the role of case studies in family therapy research are considered, including the manner in which case studies might be designed to be more rigorous so that they can serve as the basis for drawing causal inferences in clinical cases, and at the same time, provide family therapists with useful information to improve their skills. A discussion section highlights the future direction of case‐based research in the family therapy literature and how it may be used as an effective learning tool.     

Augmenting Bowen Family of Origin Work: Using the Genogram and Therapeutic Art‐based Activity

This article explores the use of creative artistic activity and metaphor to augment Bowen family of origin work. It draws on the case study of a couple engaging in premarital counselling to illustrate several ways that art making can be used to enhance Bowen systemic processes. It illustrates the value of collaborative genograms and related creative products to offer a supplementary voice for salient, verbally inexpressible content while supporting clients in externalising and processing difficult emotions with reduced reactivity.     

Adoption: A Path to a New Family

The article traces the past, present and future role of the Federal Government and other actors in the human service systems community in the development of social service systems. It presents the roles of the Federal government, business, professional organizations, State and local governments and the "information entrepeneur" in advancing the state-of-the-art in social service systems applications. Although the Federal government will continue to act as a catalyst for systems development, the "information entrepeneur" and other actors in the human service community will play greater roles.     

Family Trends and Transracial Adoption in the United States

Several demographic trends have changed family formation in the United States resulting in fewer babies being made available for adoption. At the same time the number of transracial adoptions appears to be increasing. We use the 5% Public Use Microdata Sample of the 2000 census and the National Survey of Adoptive Parents to examine the social and demographic characteristics of those who adopt transracially. Transracial adoption of Hispanic and Asian children, but not Black children, is associated with higher income and education levels. It is less likely in the South, but more likely among those who have had military experience.     

Assessing Family Outcomes: Psychometric Evaluation of the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale

There is currently a lack of reliable scales with which to assess the construct of family quality of life, particularly for families who have children with disabilities. The current work presents 2 studies, including a total of 488 families with children with disabilities, which were conducted to complete the development of a scale to assess family quality of life. The measure was refined through confirmatory factor analyses into 25 items that assess 5 domains of Family Quality of Life: Family Interaction, Parenting, Emotional Well‐Being, Physical/Material Well‐Being, and Disability‐Related Support. Each subscale was found to be unidimensional and internally consistent. An initial examination of test‐retest reliability and convergent validity is also presented. Implications for future research, scale use, and policy are discussed.     

Conceptions of Family and Adoption Among Older Adoptees

ABSTRACT

Research on older child adoptions that incorporates the adoptee's perspective is noticeably absent from the literature. Drawing on the theoretical, clinical and empirical literature on children's understanding of family and adoption, this paper reports a study that examined older adoptees' conceptions of family and adoption relative to nonadopted peers. Interviews with 15 children adopted between ages 8 and 11 and a sample of 15 demographically matched nonadopted children (47% male; 84% Caucasian, 13% African American, 3% Biracial Asian/American) provided data that were analyzed for differences in children's understanding and elaboration of family and adoption concepts. Although no group differences were found in children's basic understanding of family or adoption, differences emerged in children's ratings of the acceptability and typicality of family constellations, as well as in the nature of concept elaboration. Older adoptees were more likely to accept and view as typical nontraditional family constellations. Whereas nonadopted children relied more on biological themes, older adoptees' concept elaboration was qualitatively richer, reflecting their varied birth family and foster care experiences. Within-group comparisons among older adoptees revealed differences: Children with more experience in foster care and children who lived in the adoptive home longer displayed higher levels of family understanding and a more realistic perspective of the permanence of the placement. Implications for future research and adoption service delivery are discussed.     

Integrating a Trauma Lens into a Family Therapy Framework: Ten Principles for Family Therapists

This paper aims to show how a trauma lens can be incorporated into existing family therapy practices, changing how therapists perceive presenting problems and therefore the issues and sites of intervention. After reviewing the family therapy literature concerning trauma and defining different types of trauma, the paper discusses how traumatic memories differ from ordinary memories. Ten principles for practice are described to guide therapists in integrating the trauma lens into their family therapy practice. Three case studies are used to illustrate these principles.     

Relational Ethics and Moral Blindness: Startling Incongruities in Couple and Family Life

This article explores the common experience of working with couples and family members who describe their partners and children as important to them yet at the same time are cavalier, neglectful, ignorant, and even destructive in dealings with their loved ones. People who fail to relate ethically are said to be prone to have stagnant relationships, become corrupt in seeking solutions to moral problems, be more depressed, have poorer health problems, and experience lower quality relationships. This article describes ethical fading and moral blindness in couples and families and in our work as therapists. It argues a relational ethics frame that fosters ethical sensitivity and stronger moral identity both in ourselves and others is an important addition to our therapeutic repertoire.     

The Single‐Parent Family and the Family Therapist: About Invitations and Positioning

Single parent families sometimes represent specific challenges to family therapists. In this article a dialogical frame with important concepts such as voice and positioning is proposed to reflect on family therapy practice. This frame is used to reflect on a common invitation in family therapy with single‐parent families: the invitation to take the place of the absent parent. A case of family therapy with a single‐parent family is presented in order to illustrate the importance of flexibility in the therapist's positioning and the way the therapist's experiencing can be used as an empathic bridge to create a dialogical space in which the important issues at stake can be addressed.     

Interactive Family Music Therapy: Untangling the System

Interactive Family Music Therapy can have a unique role to play when working as part of a multidisciplinary team by demonstrating a capacity to ‘surprise’ a client/patient when they least expect it. It provides a positive shared experience that can add to multidisciplinary assessment and treatment planning. This article will illustrate the role Interactive Family Music Therapy has at Redbank House and includes case material.     

Child and Family Policies in a Time of Economic Crisis

At the beginning of 2008, a number of the world’s major economies began to experience the effects of the biggest economic financial crisis in history. By the end of that year, the financial crisis was a global recession, and governments responded with changes to a suite of social and economic policies. Two broad stages of government response are identifiable: a period of stimulus followed by a move towards austerity. This study views the crisis period from the perspective of children and family policies and assesses the justification for the changes in the economic context and in the context of the recommendations for spending on children outlined in Doing Better for Children (OECD, 2009) of early investment with a focus on at‐risk children. Across Europe, with few exceptions, child and family policies have more often than not avoided direct cuts; cash benefits are most often amended (and subject to temporary reduction in coverage or amounts); and (so far) during the crisis child and family policies continue to be advanced in many European countries.     

Strengthening Families Through Volunteerism: Integrating Family Volunteerism and Family Life Education

This article builds on increasing interest in family volunteering by presenting it as a family life education tool for strengthening relationships and family functioning. In this context, family volunteering is similar to service learning in which families learn together while giving back to their community. Informed by a discussion on bioecological systems theory, psychosocial development theory, and select studies on volunteering, this article seeks to discover how family volunteering benefits individual and family growth. Existing research indicates that, due to its rich resources, it can deepen relationships, reinforce effective interpersonal skills, and help individuals overcome life's crises. Implications for family life educators and future research are presented, including the need for collaboration and stronger data on which to base flexible and fun volunteer opportunities for families.     

Cognitive-Behavioral Family Therapy with a Family in High-Conflict Divorce: A Case Study

Children who live in families with high-conflict divorce situations are increasingly coming to the attention of clinicians. This paper explains the nature of the impasse of high-conflict divorce. It presents a brief theoretical overview of cognitive-behavioral family therapy as an effective approach to treatment for high-conflict divorce families. A case study that successfully utilized a cognitive-behavioral approach to family therapy is presented. Specific techniques such as parent training, communication and empathy skills, problem-solving skills, assertiveness training, role-modeling on the part of the therapist and application of the concept of reciprocal inhibition were included in the cognitive-behavioral family treatment. An N=1 research design is graphically illustrated for evaluation purposes.     

Toward a More Optimal Selfobject Milieu: Family Psychotherapy from the Perspective of Self Psychology

This paper applies the theory of self psychology to the understanding and treatment of families. The healthy family is viewed as a reliable source of selfobject experience for its members, while problems in or between family members are seen as due to a lack of adequate selfobject experience for one or more members. Causes of selfobject failures or misattunements in the family are examined, with an emphasis on the influence of previous relational experiences on current needs, capacities, and experiences of others. Curative factors in this form of family therapy are then outlined, and a treatment approach designed to help family members become better able to provide empathically attuned responses to each other is described, with a case example used to illustrate key points.     

Specific Cases,Techniques and Approaches: Talking Pictures in Family Therapy

This article presents a case study on the use of arts‐based resources in family therapy to help children and their post‐separation families describe their experience, communicate and collaborate with each other, witness and learn about each other, and develop their individual and family well‐being.     

Satisfaction With Work and Family Life: No Evidence of a Cultural Reversal

Hochschild (1997) argued that in recent decades the rewards of work have increased relative to those of family life and that this cultural reversal has aggravated the time bind that families face by increasing working hours. To the contrary, pooled data from the 1973–1994 General Social Surveys indicate that in working families, women have shifted away from finding work more satisfying than home toward finding home a haven. Moreover, were it not for women's growing labor force participation and the changing distribution of marital status, the shift would have been even larger. Men's relative work–home satisfaction has been stable. Finally, finding work a haven is unrelated to weekly working hours, and it has not contributed to any increases in working hours over time.     

Canada and Family Life

Abstract

Important Canadian factors are discussed to obtain a profile of this country, its communities, and family trends. The challenges for Canadian families are presented and include the sandwich generation, seniors, effects of divorce and remarriage, and same-sex marriages. A review of existing studies related to the strengths of Canadian families is included. The need for families to be strengthened has led to a variety of social supports available to the families of Canada.