THE POLITICS OF GENDER IN FAMILY THERAPY

This article provides an overview of the political implications of various approaches to gender within the clinical literature. It emphasizes the process of the rapy within the social context of gender relations and identifies the politcal consequences of various clinical responses. Issues surrounding the appropriate role and stance of therapists relative to gender are identified, ethical issues such as neutrality and client welfare are re-examined, and suggestions for practice are addressed.     

MODES OF EXPRESSION IN FAMILY THERAPY: A PROCESS STUDY OF ROLES AND GENDER*

Twenty-two two-parent families with a referred adolescent were seen by 11 male and 11 female trainees in family therapy. Mothers, fathers, adolescents, and therapists were rated for verbal expression in affective, behavioral, and cognitive! attributional modes during the first session. Results clearly point to role and content difference in modes of expression. Of particular importance are differences by role which occured as a function of therapist gender. These differences suggest that therapist gender has an impact on family therapists' and family members' verbalizations in first sessions of family therapy.     

SUGAR AND SPICE, TOADS AND MICE: GENDER ISSUES IN FAMILY THERAPY TRAINING

Whereas family therapists have become increasingly aware of gender as a central organizing principle in how we think about families, few methods have been presented to help trainees and clinicians articulate how to adress gender. Four experiential exercises (including gender survival messages, gender framed circular questions, and process observation sheets) that can be used in training and adapted for use with clients are described. What we have learned about gender from our families of origin, the larger culture, and in the construction of family therapy models can be examined with these activities.     

DIFFERENT AND SAME: FAMILY THERAPY WITH ASIAN-AMERICAN FAILIES

This paper is written for non-Asian family therapists who must deal with an increasing number of Asian-American client families. Unlike some writers in fthe field who advocate that client and therapist have the same ethnic background, the authors belive that cultural sensitivity can be learned. Several culturally important values are described, and suggestions on how to orient treatment to fit this client population are offered. A Detailed case example illustrates the treatment issues involued.     

SEXISM IN FAMILY THERAPY: DOES TRAINING IN GENDER MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical decision making of marriage and family therapists who had no training in gender compared to those who had such training, either through a separate course or by having gender issues integrated throughout the curriculum. Specifically, levels of feminism and sexism in the clinical assumptions and interventions of therapists were evaluated using clinical vignettes. Participants for this study included 150 beginning or entry-level therapists from marriage and family therapy training programs in academic settings. Of the 102 participants with some training in gender isues, 64% reported having received gender training from a faeminist perspective. contrary to expectations, a multivariate analyssis of variance revealed that training in gender issues alone did not significantly influence levels of feminism and sexism in clinical decision making. However, the levels of sexism in clinical interventions were significantly lower if therapists had received gender coursework from a feminist perspective, whether in a separate course or integrated throughout the curriculuim. These findings raise a question as to the wtility of teaching gender issues if what is taught and how it is taught are not also considered.     

AGING AND FAMILY THERAPY: PREVALENCE OF AGING ISSUES AND LATER FAMILY LIFE CONCERNS IN MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY LITERATURE (1986-1993)

To what extent are gerontological issues addressed in the marital and family literature? In answering this question, the authors conducted a content analysis of 873 articles published in the Journal of Marital Family Therapy, Family Process, Family Systems Medicine, and the Journal of Family Psychology during an 8-year period beginning in 1986. Only 3.2% (n = 28) of these articles contained explicit emphasis on aging issues and later life family concerns. Furthermore, there was no significant trend in the number of gerontologically focused articles published during this period. The paper describes the content of the 28 aging-focused articles, including the types of presenting problems mentioned, the relational contexts of these problems, and the types of family therapy theories represented. Included in the content analysis were the proceedings of the annual national conferences of the American Association of Marital and Family Therapy from 1986 to 1993. Only 2.3% (n = 37) of the regular conference sessions had an explicit aging focus, as did 1 of the 29 plenary sessions and 1 of the 40 Master Series® sessions. Used as a gauge of gerontological interest and awareness of late life issues, the implication of these findings is that the family therapy community is still engaged in “comming of age.”     

BEYOND LAW AND ETHICS: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSE IN FAMILY LAW AND FAMILY THERAPY

The professions of family therapy and law share many clients and areas of overlap. Law-related coursework in family therapy programs in typically limited to legal, ethical, and professional issues. However, students can also benefit from understanding other areas of overlap, such as divorce, child custody, and mediation. This article discusses the curriculum for an interdisciplinary course that educates both family therapy and law students. The course provides: (1) a substantive education about similarities and differences between the profession, how they operate as systems, and specific areas of overlap, (2) opportunities to learn clinical skills, and (3) opportunities for personal insight about skills, personality tyes, and negotiations, styles, and how these may differ between the professions.     

THE CORRELATES OF HEALTHY FAMILY FUNCTIONING: THE ROLE OF CONSENSUS AND CONFLICT IN THE PRACTICE OF FAMILY THERAPY

The present study explores the relative importance of individual, dyadic and triadic measures of intrafamily functioning in predicting family health. Using self-report data from 78 families, it was found that dyadic measures pertaining to marital quality and parent-child relationships were more powerful predictors than either individual measures of emotional maturity, anxiety, self-esteem or locus of control, or triadic measures of the families' hierarchical alignments. The study also found that while mothers' and fathers' assessments of intrafamily functioning were more important than the childrens' (except for the childrens' view of parent-child relationships), the parents differed in that marital quality was more important to the mothers' evaluations of the family unit while parent-child relationships were more important to the fathers'. Compositely, the findings suggest that family health is a complex multidimensional phenomenon, and that change in a particular dimension of family life may not necessarily be greeted with consensual validation or repudiation by all family members.     

USES OF CHILDREN'S MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY IN FAMILY THERAPY:THEORY AND CLINICAL EXAMPLES

A theoretical framework for developing, describing and analyzing family-therapeutic techniques involving make-believe play is presented and illustrated by clinical examples. This theoretical framework includes specifications of the therapeutic goals served by the technique and its procedural details (the therapist's position and roles, the method of intervention, the sources of play content and means, and the amount of planning) and an analysis of its rationale (the properties of the make-believe play involved, the targets of the intervention in the family system, the expected changes and their causes). This framework draws on a definition of the concept "make-believe play," a model for the analysis of make-believe play symbols and a model of family systems, which are briefly sketched in this article, preceding the presentation of the theoretical framework itself.     

AESTHETICS AND PRAGMATICS OF FAMILY THERAPY REVISITED

After reacting specifically to Simon's (1992) proposal for the integration of first and second-order therapies, I note how he, as well as Anderson and Goolihian (1988, 1990), focus primarily on deliberate, intentional ways to promote a respectful stance in therapy. Although a consideration of which intentional stances and strategies will promote the most helpful conversations in therapy is important, an even more critial question concerns the possible limitations of intentional efforts and the relation of conscious mind to other natural orders of mind in the living world. I suggest that deliberate efforts on the part of theapists toward any intended therapeutic outcomes must be comlemented by instictive and intuitive ways of participating with clients.     

USE OF THE DSM IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY PROGRAMS: CURRENT PRACTICES AND ATTITUDES

The DSM has largely become the common language of behavioral health which its authors intended. Although family systems theory resulted in part from the study of major mental illness, it later became distanced from considerations of individual psychopathology. No studies have assessed current practices and views within the field of family therapy on teaching students the use of the DSM. Member training programs of the Education and Training Council of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy were surveyed regarding their practices in teaching the DSM. Seventy-nine of 177 surveys (45%) were returned. Ninety-one percent of these programs offered training in the DSM, and in 93% of those such training was mandatory. Written comments indicated that pragmatic concerns about students being able to speak a common language with other behavioral health providers were among the primary reasons for teaching the DSM.     

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE AND TOPIC AREAS IN FAMILY THERAPY: TRENDS IN THREE MAJOR JOURNALS

Following Gurman (1981), this study reports on authors and topics of interest in prominent marriage and family therapy journals from 1980 through 1995. Fifteen of the 25 institutions that produced the greatest number of authors prior to 1978 continued to be among the top 25 between 1980 and 1995, and the 25 leading institutions produced 29.5% of articles from 1980 to 1995. Most authors held positions in university settings and taught in programs with a marriage and family therapy focus. Clinical issues were the most common focus of articles (61%), and one-third of all articles were research reports.     

BASIC FAMILY THERAPY SKILLS, IV: TRANSGENERATIONAL THEORIES OF FAMILY THERAPY

This pape focuses on the basic skills and compentencies of transgenerational approaches to family therapy, the fourth report of a program of research surveys by the Basic Family Therapy Skills Project. In the first survey, a panel of family therapy educators listed the most critical or basic skills or compentencies of beginning family therapist with a transgenerational orientation. In the third survey, self-selected respondents rated these items according to degree of importance for beginning family therapists. Rankings of the items according to mean scores of the Likert responses indicate that transgenerational family therapy skills are founded in theory and can be identified behaviorally. The most important skills are those that use the self of the therapist to understand and utilize transgenerational family therapy skills for both therapist and client. Also listed are skills that many raters deemed "generic" rather than specifically related to transgenerational family therapy. Other findings and their implications for the future training of family therapists are discusses. Although the paper is intended for family therapy educators interested in their colleagues' ideas about critical skills in trans-generational family therapy, theorists and clinicians may also find it useful.     

FAMILY RESEARCH AND FAMILY THERAPY: A REUNION?*

This decade is witnessing the re-establishment of research in family therapy as an intrinsic component of the field. It is instructive to recall that family therapy actually had its most significant beginnings in the context of family research in the 1950s and that, three decades ago, family therapy and family research were fundamentally fused. In this paper, several of the most important forms of recent and current family research and family therapy research that are important to clinicians are identified, and it is suggested that this reunion of clinical and research interests signifies a new phase in the growth of the family therapy field.     

RACE,GENDER, AND STATUS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF PRINT ADVERTISEMENTS IN FOUR POPULAR MAGAZINES

In this article, we consider the continuation of race gender stereotypes in advertising images by way of the product's suggestive messages, specifically, connotations of higher or lower social status and promises of intangible social rewards (e.g., friendship, appearance, romance). We examined 1, 709 advertisements in magazines whose primary reading audiences differ by race and/or gender: Life, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, and Essence (1988-1990). For the analysis, we created and then compared three dimensions of status (affluent, trendy, and everyday) and five product promises (celebrity identification, sex romance, appearance, marriage family, and good times) as they are modeled by and presented to male, female, Black, and White readers in the magazines examined. We hypothesized that these status-image portrayals differ by race and gender. We found that most ads make use of positive (i.e., high-status) images of Blacks and Whites and women and men and that differences between magazines are more pronounced than differences between models. Some patterns in the use of status and product promises may be suggestive of continued, though subtle, stereotyping.     

THE IMPACT OF RACE ON DENOMINATIONAL VARIATIONS IN SOCIAL ATTITUDES: THE ISSUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS

Although the impact of religious affiliation on social attitudes is a popular research topic in the sociology of religion, few scholars have examined the role that race plays in this relationship. Moreover, studies that do explore the interplay of race and religious affiliation seldom move beyond the general categories of conservative, moderate, and liberal denominational families. Our research uses recent data from the General Social Surveys to compare the social attitudes of African Americans and their white counterparts within established designations of religious affiliation. Along with control variables, we include attitude measures for political tolerance, legalized abortion, gender equality, premarital sex, homosexual lifestyles, and extramarital sexual relations. Our analysis isolates levels of support for these attitudes within categories of race and religious affiliation to determine whether variations emerge and whether they are nested within specific issues, religious denominations, or reflect more general patterns of race differences.