The Baby as Subject: The Hospitalised Infant and the Family Therapist

This article is concerned with the experience of infants who endure long hospitalisations. It explores the concept of the baby as subject; that is, infants as active, psychic participants in their earliest relationships. It explores therapeutic possibilities with hospitalised infants from an infant mental health perspective. It advocates for family therapists to equip themselves for infant—parent therapeutic work.     

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.     

Lawyer and Therapist as an Interdisciplinary Team: Trial Preparation

When a therapist becomes a courtroom witness, he/she often is in unfamiliar territory. Before appearing as a witness, a therapist must prepare by completely understanding the case and client, together with courtroom practices and procedures. This article reviews trial preparation and illustrates examination and cross-examination, opinion testimony and hypothetical questions. The rules of effective response to cross-examination are set forth to aid the therapist in providing meaningful and credible testimony under adverse and occasionally unpleasant conditions.     

The Presence of Children and Blended Family Marital Intimacy

This study is an effort to add to the understanding of spousal dynamics in blended families. The survey of 88 couples investigated the effects of family configuration, residence of chil- dren, and birth of a mutual child on husbands' and wives' self-re- ported marital intimacy. Significant interaction effects were found for residence of children on spouses' marital intimacy and for birth of a mutual child on wives' marital intimacy.     

Therapist Ratings of Frequency and Severity of Marital Problems: Implications for Research*

In order to ascertain fruitful directions for marital therapy research, practicing marital therapists were asked to provide information regarding the clinical relevance of potential research topics. A structured questionnaire was mailed to 250 members of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. Therapists treating at least five couples were asked to rate the frequency, severity, and treatment difficulty for 29 problems commonly experienced by distressed couples. Therapists' responses indicated the clinical relevance of a number of potential directions for research. Communication and alcoholism were most strongly endorsed as priority areas for future marital therapy research.     

The Family,The Statutory Worker and the Therapist Working Together for Change

Myths have developed for some therapists and statutory workers that have prevented or interfered with their forming a satisfactory working relationship. In such a climate, families tend to remain confused and disempowered and become more dependent on the authority of the legal and statutory system. This paper describes work with one particular family and a local Community Services, Victoria social worker, where these issues were addressed in a way that allowed the workers to be clear about their roles and enabled the parents to resume their responsibility for parenting. The emphasis in this article is on practice issues.     

The 122 Family Study: Empirical Data for 75 Marital and Parental Dyads

A sorting test for dyads describing their marital evaluation is outlined; its application to marital dyads where one member is a patient, and to parental dyads where an adolescent son or daughter is the patient is recorded. While the test does not distinguish between many individual and family demographic factors, it does relate to diagnostic groups and, at follow up, to the stability of the marriages. An analysis of the behaviours of different role players in the drama of psychiatric admission shows that there are significant differences between patient and spouse in their test choices. Differences are also noted between the mother and father of an admitted adolescent.     

Systems in Settings: The Therapist as Power Broker*

Family therapy discourse has given little recognition to either the specificities of the settings in which family therapy is employed or to the specificites of our clients. Clients are frequently constituted into the culturally subordinate position of ‘other’ to the therapist. This paper examines the ethical imperatives of the position therapists occupy in relation to their others.     

The Link Between the Marital Bond and Future Triadic Family Interactions

This study examined how the marital bond, as indexed through the Oral History Interview (OHI), is related to future triadic family interactions. Families (N = 108), with a 7–9‐year‐old child, participated in a longitudinal study (the Family Health Project) examining children's emotional development throughout the transition to adolescence. Parental cohesion and family cohesion, warmth, structure, and problem solving were assessed via behavioral observation during family problem‐solving discussions and parent‐child teaching interactions 18–24 months after the OHI. Results indicated that the marital bond was predictive of parental cohesion, family cohesion, warmth, and structure during teaching interactions. The marital bond was not significantly predictive of family problem solving or parental cohesion in problem‐solving interactions.     

Therapeutic Change and Anorexia Nervosa: Views of a Family and a Therapist

Answers to the question ‘Why do people change in family therapy?’ remain somewhat elusive and may to some extent always remain partial. However, the perceptions of important participants in the therapeutic system, namely family members themselves, seem somewhat under-utilised. A regular examination and integration of the families' views may lead to enrichment of our understanding of this complex area. In this paper the therapist's (and therapy team's) views of the possible catalysts of change in therapy are compared with one family's ideas twelve months after termination of treatment. The family had attended for family therapy because the middle daughter had been suffering from anorexia nervosa.     

The Couple Relationship as the Focus of Sex Therapy: The Integration of Sex Therapy Ideas and Techniques with Marital and Family Therapy

The marriage and family therapist needs basic information about techniques used in sex therapy in order to deal with the sexual issues they may encounter in their practice. This paper outlines a method of incorporating the psychotherapeutic techniques presently used in sex therapy into the marriage and family counselling setting when there is a sexual issue involved. The paper is separated into (1) a discussion of the problem, (2) recovering the relationship as the focus for sex therapy, and (3) the main approaches to treatment. Next, (4) practice issues are considered, with a presentation of couple therapy using concepts and techniques of sex therapy, including discussions on A. Identification of Organic Causes, B. Identification of Psychological Issues, C. Examination of Interpersonal Issues, and D. Assessment of Systemic Issues. (5) Some more common interventions are then presented.     

杭州历史文化遗产保护的思考与对策

加强杭州文化遗产保护利用,建设＂东方名城文化强市＂,对于树立杭州文化形象品牌,增强城市文化软实力、综合竞争力,提升杭州核心价值观,增强市民凝聚力创造力,促进杭州科学发展,都具有重要的现实价值和历史意义。     

The Functional Approach to Using Dreams in Marital and Family Therapy*

This paper presents a process based method for using dreams as an adjunct to marital and family therapy. Based on the functional orientation in psychology, this approach identifies and emphasizes personality and life area strengths rather than weaknesses. Dreams are viewed as pictures of feelings and as guides to the emotional dynamics operating for each individual in a family system. The process variables of expression, feeling, clarity, activity, and contact levels are emphasized. A case study illustrates the application of this approach in the treatment of a disturbed family system.     

Men's Self-Perceived Adequacy as the Family Breadwinner: Implications for Their Psychological, Marital, and Work-Family Weil-Being

Researchers note a link between men's changing role as the family breadwinner and declines in their personal and marital well-being. To explore this link more fully, two aspects of the breadwinner role, earner status (single- [n = 50], main-[n = 46], dual-earner [n = 43]) and self-perceived adequacy as the family breadwinner, were examined. Using analysis of variance, 139 family men are compared in terms of measures of psychological, marital, and work-family well-being. Self-perceived inadequate breadwinners (n = 51) report more depression and marital conflict than adequate breadwinners (n = 88). Men in single-earner families report less work-family stress than either main- or dual-earner men. If they perceive themselves as inadequate breadwinners, time conflicts between work and family responsibilities are a concern for men in main-earner families. If they view themselves as adequate breadwinners, dual-earner men report a greater sense of work-family role overload than if they view themselves as inadequate breadwinners.     

The Therapist as Psychobiological Regulator: Dissociation,Affect Attunement and Clinical Process

Dissociation is defined as a protective coping mechanism employed on a broad spectrum: from day-to-day “spacing out” to psychic numbing to multiplicity. A convergence of recent insights in traumatology, neuroscience, and developmental theory is reviewed. These findings all point to the importance of affect regulation in infant and child development and in the therapeutic relationship, where attunement to implicit communication is crucial. Using such relational and intersubjective organizing principles as the concept of enactment and Beebe and Lachmann’s (Infant research and adult treatment: Co-constructing interactions 2002) “three principles of salience,” I discuss an analytic case in which dissociation is a central dynamic.