Ethical, legal and professional issues in family therapy: a graduate level course

This paper reports on the curricular components of a course entitled "Ethical, Legal and Professional Issues in Family Therapy." To aid in replication and assessment, selected teaching strategies are also presented.     

Aging issues: unanswered questions in marital and family therapy literature

Researchers have reviewed couple and family therapy journals to determine the extent to which issues concerning older populations are addressed. In an effort to extend previous work, we conducted content analyses of 957 articles published in three of the leading marital and family therapy journals between 1997 and 2006. From the articles, 27 (2.8%) mentioned aging or included older adults in their sample. Results indicate that the number of articles emphasizing older adults has not substantially increased. While this result has been substantiated by other researchers in previous years, a new finding in this study concerns the quality of articles on aging issues. The articles reviewed in this study indicated a greater focus on aging issues and addressing issues during this life cycle stage.     

Integrating gender on multiple levels: a conceptual model for teaching gender issues in family therapy

As the field of family therapy has evolved, there has been growing recognition as to the importance of gender in family therapy. To prepare the next generation of family therapists adequately, it is important that they recognize the many and complex ways in which gender permeates their work. In this article we present an integrative model to help educators teach family therapists about gender issues. The model examines how gender influences clinical work on multiple levels, including contextual levels such as society and the marriage and family therapy field. The model also acknowledges how gender can influence individuals, including clients, therapists, and supervisors. Finally, the model attempts to capture the complexity of how gender can impact the relational dynamics between two or more individuals.     

Spiritual assessment in marital and family therapy: a methodological framework for selecting from among six qualitative assessment tools

Emerging professional and cultural developments underscore the importance of spiritual assessment. Most marriage and family therapists, however, appear to have received little training on the topic. Consequently, this article overviews a complementary family of six recently developed qualitative assessment approaches or tools, an initial brief assessment tool and five comprehensive assessment tools, and presents a methodological framework for using the six tools. To help decide whether or not a comprehensive assessment is warranted after conducting an initial brief assessment, two general guidelines are offered. Suggestions for selecting the appropriate comprehensive assessment tool are also presented, and summarized graphically in the form of a decision tree. The overall methodological framework is designed to be congruent with the recent spiritual assessments recommendations issued by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the largest healthcare accrediting organization in the United States.     

Maintaining a family focus: Underlying issues and challenges

More therapists respect and support the idea of family therapy than actually practice it. Reasons have been proffered for this state, but none has considered the therapist's personhood as a variable. This paper explores the possible connection between worker's personality and tendency to underuse the family focused treatment modality. A relationship is made between the therapist's developmental experiences as a parentified child and their impact on choices for favoring less populated frameworks of treatment than family focused approaches. Areas of difficulty are identified and suggestions for assisting staff to increase family focused practice are made.     

Teaching graduate-level evaluation sociology through a departmental evaluation

The Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin conducted an internal evaluation of its graduate program through an applied methodology graduate course. This article reports on the effectiveness of the format for teaching research methods, the utilization of the evaluation's findings, and the conditions that need to occur for a similar study to take place. Through the course, graduate students gained experience using multiple methods in evaluation research as well as acquiring an inside perspective on the department and the profession. Although some problems of conducting an internal evaluation are discussed, we found that with departmental support the evaluation was an effective method of promoting internal discourse and change.     

Spiritual ecomaps: a new diagrammatic tool for assessing marital and family spirituality

This paper develops a new diagrammatic spiritual assessment tool, the spiritual ecomap, for use with individuals, couples, and families. While a genogram portrays a family's history over time, a spiritual ecomap provides a valuable supplement by depicting a family's current relationships to critical ecological systems in space. The spiritual ecomap is based upon an anthropological framework conceptualized in the spiritual formation tradition and can be used with families from diverse spiritual traditions. I use a case study to familiarize the reader with the instrument, and offer suggestions for its application.     

The use of theory in family therapy research: a content analysis of family therapy journals

Ninety-five studies from Family Process and Journal of Marital and Family Therapy were evaluated with regard to their use of theory. While a majority of the articles were judged to use theory in either an explicit or an implicit manner, 42% did not appear to draw on theory in either the introductory or discussion sections. Studies that used qualitative methods appeared to use theory more frequently and explicitly than those using quantitative methods alone. Systems theory was found to be the most common conceptual framework, followed by feminism. We conclude that the link between theory and research in family therapy needs strengthening and suggest that the role of theory in family therapy be reexamined.     

Internal family systems therapy for children in family therapy

This article presents a developmentally supported implementation of Internal Family Systems Therapy for school-age children and their families. Relevant developmental characteristics of children are described. Suggestions for working with parents, child-oriented interventions, and a case example are presented.     

Qualitative research in family therapy: a substantive and methodological review

Over the last decade, marriage and family therapy (MFT) researchers have developed a growing interest in qualitative research. In this article, we review substantive and methodological trends in the published qualitative studies within the MFT field. The research is compared and contrasted in the following areas: General topic, epistemological theory, methodological theory, sampling and sample, data collection, data analysis procedure, and approach to reliability and validity. We also provide recommendations for future research.     

Qualitative evaluation of family therapy programs: a participatory approach

In this article, we provide examples of participatory qualitative evaluation methods that can be used within family therapy training programs. These methods can elicit useful feedback to improve programs and, at the same time, empower trainees to become partners in the evaluation process.     

Talking about violence: a microanalysis of narrative processes in a family therapy session

In this article, we look at the development in family therapy of narratives about domestic violence. We report on microanalyses of a family therapy session, using narrative research methods, including some conversation analytic tools. The main questions posed in this investigation were: How does storytelling of a highly charged and delicate topic like domestic violence develop in the session?; how do the different actors in the therapy room contribute to telling such stories?; how do actors try to put forward domestic violence as a conversational topic? and how do different actors react to these attempts? Our research illustrates how the recounting of stories of violence seems to go hand in hand with modes of interaction that discourage the telling of these stories. In the back‐and‐forth process between voices of hesitation and voices of reassurance, the participants weigh the level of safety in the session. In as far as the voices of hesitation can be reassured of the safety, it becomes gradually possible to talk about delicate, problematic experiences, such as violence in the family.     

Selfobject functions of the family: Implications for family therapy

The application of Self-Psychology theory to family functioning adds to our models of understanding and intervention in family therapy. This article develops a theory of the family as a supraordinate selfobject and explores diverse clinical applications of the theory. The family as a selfobject matrix enhances the self development of the child by the provision of continuity through the maintenance of proximity over time, and by an enhanced quality and quantity of selfobject responsiveness for the individual. This application of Self Psychology theory has wide implications for family therapy with children in foster care, family therapy with elderly couples coping with dementia in one spouse, and family therapy as a component of treatment with suicidal adolescents.     

Unlocking the family secret in family play therapy

Family play therapy combines play therapy with family systems therapy. When family secrets are revealed in a family setting, with play to cushion the family's anxiety, families have the opportunity to resolve long-standing intrapsychic and interpersonal difficulties that impede the psychological well-being of both children and parents. Family play therapy effectively reduces symptomatic behavior in children in an age-appropriate manner—an advantage over family therapy that may be geared to adult cognitive levels. It also gradually shifts the family to a systems perspective of its problems in a non-threatening way, thereby facilitating the child's connection to his or her primary caretakers.Ms. Eaker is a psychotherapist in private practice in Family Systems Theory, and therapist for the United Federation Teachers' Stress Management Program and various Employee Assistance Programs, and a PhD candidate.     

Doing a good job badly Mind-sets in family therapy

This paper reports on a case in which family therapy was one of the approaches attempting to resolve an eating disorder in the second-born of twins, the youngest in an intact family of four children. The case is described in its referral, agency and chronological contexts. The initial referral suggested that there was no physical cause for the presenting problem, and advocated an investigation of family dynamics. Some evidence which seemed to support the dysfunctional family formulation was provided, and various hypotheses regarding family disturbance were pursued in therapy. These hypotheses were, on the surface, supported by systemic observations. When a rare pancreatic tumour which was underlying the eating disorder was diagnosed many months after the brief and unsuccessful interventions, ‘confirmation bias’, resistance and neutrality became important issues for the therapists to consider. The role of these processes in this case is discussed.     

Engaging suffering: towards a mindful re-visioning of family therapy practice

The myth of problem-free living is easily identifiable in Western culture through its childhood fairy tales and modern love stories. Even if inadvertently, the field of mental health perpetuates this myth with the very concept of "mental health," which implies a state without suffering. Using mindfulness, Buddhists assume an alternative stance towards suffering: rather than eliminate it, they compassionately engage it. This article explores the potentials of mindfulness as an alternative approach to suffering within the context of marriage and family therapy. Family therapists can integrate mindfulness principles into their work to help clients shift how they relate to the unique forms of suffering that one encounters in intimate relationships, such as abuse, divorce, rejection, and loss.     

Biracial youth and families in therapy: issues and interventions

Empirical research and clinical resources focusing specifically on minority youth and families have increased tremendously in the last 2 decades. Despite this trend, certain groups continue to be relatively neglected. In particular, very few resources exist for understanding the unique challenges that often face biracial youth and their families. In this article, we use a nationally representative database to compare functioning in biracial youth to white adolescents and other minority adolescents. Results suggest that biracial/biethnic youth are a particularly vulnerable group in terms of self-reported delinquency, school problems, internalizing symptoms, and self-regard. As a group, they are also more likely to receive some form of psychological intervention. Given these findings and the shortcoming of clinical resources for work with this population, we provide an in-depth discussion of why biracial youth may be particularly vulnerable from a social-constructionist framework and offer several strategies based on narrative family therapy for working with biracial youngsters and their families.