The prevalence of later life family concerns in the marriage and family therapy journal literature (1976-1985): a content analysis*

This study assessed the frequency with which the marital and family therapy journal literature focused on problems associated with aging in a family context. Content analysis was used to assess the prevalence of later life family concerns in two leading journals, Family Process and the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, during a 10-year period (1976-1985). Results indicate that neither journal covered later life family issues to any appreciable degree. It is concluded that elders in marital and family relationships constitute a new frontier for the extension and elaboration of family therapy.     

Learning at the edge

This article describes the metaphors persons used to describe their experiences within a three year training project in family therapy. Questions were posed of trainees that had asked them to describe their experiences of training as if they represented the title of a book, movie or journal article. Responses reveal how they construct or ‘story’ their experiences from both a first and second-order cybernetic perspective.     

Evaluating Scholarship Productivity in COAMFTE-Accredited PhD Programs

Due to an increasing trend among states to cut higher education funds, many universities are relying more on private donations and federal funding to keep programs afloat. Scholarship productivity in general has become an integral factor in terms of universities granting tenure to faculty, allocating resources, and supporting program goals due to the fact that more research in a particular area tends to increase the likelihood that one will obtain funding from federal, state, and private sources. In the past, ranking systems have also been used to evaluate programs. However, most ranking systems use methodologies that do not quantify research productivity or evaluate factors that match current university trends. The purpose of this article is to explore current scholarship productivity trends among COAMFTE-accredited doctoral programs through the use of several evaluation methods. Specifically, productivity was examined in regard to the following areas: (a) family therapy journal publications; (b) family science journal publications; (c) historic journal publication trends; and (d) recent journal publication trends.     

Art,Science and Curiosity: Research and Research Methodologies in Australian Family Therapy 1979–2000

This article presents an historical analysis of the development of research and research methodologies in an Australian context. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy was chosen as the site of the analysis. The first section of data consists of the articles that represent themselves as ‘research’ in the period from 1979 (the journal's inception) to 2000. These texts have been analysed using bibliometric analysis. The second section of data consists of commentary articles about research in family therapy. This data has been analysed using discourse analysis. Overall, I have been interested in how family therapists have defined ‘research’; how family therapists have chosen to inquire; representations of the researcher in Australian family therapy; associations between theoretical or clinical developments and the methodologies that have been chosen for inquiries. Findings from the study reveal very limited representations of research in the journal for the period under review, and an apparent struggle for family therapists to undertake a discussion about what research actually is. Questions are raised around how this has occurred, and some ideas are presented as to how research knowledges can be included in debates around theory diversity in family therapy.     

Evaluating Scholarship Productivity in COAMFTE‐Accredited Doctoral Programs: An Update

Scholarly productivity continues to be used as a significant factor when universities make decisions about granting tenure to faculty, allocating resources, and supporting program goals. In 2009, DuPree, White, Meredith, Ruddick, and Anderson reviewed research productivity in faculty from COAMFTE‐accredited PhD programs. As an update, the purpose of this article is to re‐examine scholarly productivity trends among COAMFTE‐accredited doctoral programs through the use of several evaluation methods. Specifically, productivity was examined in the following areas: (a) family therapy journal publications; (b) publications in any type of peer‐reviewed journal; (c) h‐factor index scores; and (d) historic and recent journal publication trends.     

Intervention research in couple and family therapy: a methodological and substantive review and an introduction to the special issue

This article serves as an introduction to this third version of research reviews of couple and family therapy (CFT) that have appeared in this journal beginning in 1995. It also presents a methodological and substantive overview of research in couple and family therapy from about 2001/2002 to 2010/2011 (the period covered in this issue), while also making connections with previous research. The article introduces quantitative research reviews of family-based intervention research that appear in this issue on 10 substantive areas including conduct disorder/delinquency, drug abuse, childhood and adolescent disorders (not including the aforementioned), family psycho-education for major mental illness, alcoholism, couple distress, relationship education, affective disorders, interpersonal violence, and chronic illness. The paper also introduces the first qualitative research paper in this series, as well as a paper that highlights current methodologies in meta-analysis. The first part of this article rates the 10 content areas on 12 dimensions of methodological strength for quantitative research and makes generalizations about the state of quantitative methodology in CFT. The latter part of the papers summarizes and makes comments on the substantive findings in the 12 papers in this issue, as well as on the field as a whole.     

A Contribution to the History of Family Therapy in Australia and New Zealand: A Bibliometric Perspective*

The content of the first ten volumes of The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy is analysed to provide a picture of the major themes and subject matter addressed in its formative years using the techniques of bibliometrics and content analysis. A methodology is developed for measuring the prevalence of subject content in the journal which could have application in other fields. The interdisciplinary character of family therapy is demonstrated by the diversity of cited end-of-article journal references. A list of most-cited journals is provided. The characteristics of authorship are discussed with respect to geographic dispersion, institutional affiliation, seniority and gender. The issue of collaborative authorship is discussed in relation to the patterns of co-authorship observed in this period, 1979–1989. The analysis identifies signs of the emergence of family therapy as a discrete field. The paper concludes also that there are positive signs of maturation of the journal. It offers some pointers about directions for the journal in the next phase ofits development.     

DEVELOPING AN IDENTITY AS A FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPIST: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRAINING

Although feminists have profoundly influenced the field of family therapy, little has been written about the process by which these women came to identify themselves as feminist family therapists. This article reports the results of a qualitative research study that explored that process and suggests a model of feminist family therapy identity development. Implications for training programs are reveived.     

To Live More Comfortably with Difference An Interview with Peter Churven

Peter Churven's name has been associated with family therapy in Australia since the early days. He is remembered as the original Director of Redbank House (which pioneered whole family admissions), and for his forceful presence as the Foundation President of the N.S.W. Family Therapy Association. He was recently elected as a member of the Board for this journal. As you read his words, imagine him now and then pausing to think, swivelling in his chair, so that the creaking acts as punctuation.     

Piecing Together Family Social Work in Mainland China

As rapid economic and sociopolitical development brings about drastic changes in family structure and processes in China, many social concerns arise. Through a review of journal articles published over a period of 28 years (1979–2006) in social work and related disciplines in China, this article presents a glimpse of family social work using the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. The result is despairing, in that only a small number of articles on family social work were found. Given social work's traditionally strong belief in the family, as well as the strong emphasis on the family in China, the social work profession can contribute to China's social development through strengthening family social work and family policy. Nevertheless, this article argues for family social work to be sensitive to the cultural needs and characteristics of families in China, instead of imposing Western theories and interventions as if families come in just one size and shape.     

Blurred Lines

This article in the journal “Gruppe. Organisation. Interaktion. (GIO)” is a case study exploring the interpersonal dynamics and cultural phenomena in a highly successful private practice which provides court-mandated counseling services for clients from mostly low socioeconomic backgrounds. The purpose of the study and the related consulting project was to identify the success factors of the practice. In the course of the research, the generational transition and future of the business emerged as the core issues facing the practice members. The results and subsequent discussion explore the spillover of home and family dynamics into the workplace and include assessments regarding organizational sustainability.     

User Involvement in Therapy: Couples' and Family Therapists’ Lived Experiences with the Inclusion of a Feedback Procedure in Clinical Practice

User involvement in therapy includes some form of feedback from the clients. The feedback guides the therapist and the clients toward a best possible result through a best possible therapy process. In recent years many different procedures for collecting feedback have been developed. In a previous study presented in this journal we explored the expectations therapists had before including the comprehensive clinical feedback procedure, Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC), in their clinical practices. Our aim with this present study is to explore couples' and family therapists’ experiences with STIC from the perspective of user involvement. We found that the term ‘using STIC’ represented many different variations both between therapists and between the families each therapist worked with. Likewise user involvement, combined with a feedback procedure like STIC, was also a many faceted area. We discuss how therapists’ experiences may relate to the different aspects of user involvement in therapy.     

Most and Least Meaningful Learning Experiences in Marriage and Family Therapy Education

Marriage and family therapy educators increasingly emphasize training competencies. What we know less about is what makes family therapy education meaningful to marriage and family therapy (MFT) graduate students and what does not. In this study, through an Internet survey, we explored the most and least meaningful learning experiences of 68 MFT graduate students and recent graduates of Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education—accredited programs. We used thematic analysis to identify and illustrate resulting themes, which included the importance of experiential and personal components to learning, the professor‐student alliance, tying theory to practice, and the experiences of students with their clients, among others. We discuss the implications of these findings to support family therapy education and offer tentative suggestions for formative discussions both within and across programs. Video Abstract is found in the online version of the article .     

In the Right Place at The Right Time: An Interview with Brian Stagoll

Few in Australia have done more than Brian Stagoll to develop and critique a local family therapy within an international context, to define its political and intellectual challenges, and to give the field organisational substance. He has been at the centre of Australian family therapy for more than two decades, as both creator and iconoclast. Brian is a psychiatrist who has always pursued social justice and community health initiatives along with a busy life as a therapist, and is a keen reader of history, politics, philosophy and literature. He was a co‐founder of our annual conferences. He co‐founded and organised the Williams Road Summer Schools in the 1980s. He was a co‐founder of this journal, its first Associate Editor and book review editor. He has contributed some of our most significant papers, as well as publishing elsewhere nationally and internationally. He was influential as a Board member and later as President. He is an Honorary Life Member of VAFT, which he co‐founded, and in 2001 he received — in his home city of Melbourne — the Journal Award for outstanding contributions to family therapy.     

Advocating for an End to Reparative Therapy: Methodological Grounding and Blueprint for Change

Despite the ethical and methodological concerns surrounding reparative therapy (RT) (also known as conversion therapy), a 2011 journal published a study claiming that lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons can “change” their sexual orientation. While much has been written about the deleterious effects of RT it continues to be researched and practiced, and, therefore, continues to cause harm. This article reviews methodological and ethical problems of RT and factors associated with it, and suggests steps to decrease and eventually end its practice as an aspect of social work's mission, which is to protect vulnerable populations, including lesbians and gay men.     

Social Class in Family Therapy Education: Experiences of Low SES Students

In this article, we report the results of a national survey of students in COAMFTE‐accredited family therapy programs who self‐identify as coming from lower‐ or working‐class backgrounds. Results of the study reveal opportunity and tension relative to family, friends, and community because of social mobility associated with graduate education. Participants describe family therapy education as middle‐class centered, pointing to lack of attention to social class, marginalization, classism, and unacknowledged class barriers as salient experiences in their graduate programs. Finally, participants share a number of suggestions for program improvement.     

Enhancing Family Therapy's Relationships With Research

The contention of this article is that systemic family therapy has much to gain from a realistic appraisal of its research base, which is as positive as possible. And that through such an appraisal we can find ways of developing the scope of family therapy to the benefit of the profession and thereby, of our clients. Family therapy will benefit if practitioners can present an informed view of research. As a preliminary approach to this objective, I review reasons why perceptions of family therapy underestimate its research base, and why therapists might resist involvement with research. The article then explores the reasons for regarding randomised controlled trials as a ‘gold standard’, and why they are not well fitted for the purpose of evaluating or developing a relational therapy. Next is a consideration of alternative approaches to research, including a consideration of what clients actually want from their therapy, then a brief review of the positive findings of outcome research. Greater emphasis on researching processes in therapy is proposed, and consideration of the ‘common factors’ debate is shown to support priorities that are specific to systemic therapies. The article concludes with suggestions for increasing the involvement of family therapists with research, both as consumers and as research practitioners.     

Producing Family Problems: Organization and Uses of the Family Perspective and Rhetoric in Family Therapy

This article applies and extends literature on the micropolitics of trouble and family rhetoric perspectives by analyzing how therapists in a family therapy agency practicing the brief model used family rhetoric in defining and responding to client problems. Family rhetoric is the use of images of family (the family perspective) to (1) persuade others to one's preferred orientation to issues of mutual concern and (2) attribute identities to one's self and others. The article focuses on how the therapists rhetorically enacted and applied the family perspective in interactions with colleagues and clients to define and remedy client troubles. In general, troubles were defined and remedied by treating them as products of clients' family systems, defined as enduring roles, relationships, and perspectives. The therapists sought to remedy client troubles by initiating changes assessed as appropriate for their troubles and family systems. The article concludes by considering some of the implications of the findings and analysis for the sociological study of human service work.     

The theory,structure, and techniques for the inclusion of children in family therapy: a literature review

Many barriers prevent therapists from including young children in family therapy, despite the theoretical belief that every family member should be present. Although there is a wealth of literature describing how to include children, the information has not been compiled in a way that is easily accessible to therapists. In this article, we report the findings of an exhaustive and systematic literature review of 64 publications, published between 1972 and 1999, related to including children in family therapy. The purpose of this article is to offer therapists a succinct compilation of theoretical, structural, and practical aspects as well as a comprehensive listing of specific techniques for including children in family therapy.