The Relationship Of Family Theory To Family Therapy*

This paper deals with the knowledge and thinking of the therapist, who is the link between theory and therapy. Based on the self-analysis of a single family consultation interview, the various theories employed and the decision points are described. It is suggested that therapists can espouse many theories or single ones, but are always confronted with difficult decisions. Some features of the field of family therapy which foster an overevaluation of science and certitude are discussed.     

Siblingship And Continuity Of The Family In The Balinese Houseyard

This article investigates yafuni (‘witchcraft’ or female sorcery) accusations among the Maisin people living in Collingwood Bay, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. It takes as its primary case a public meeting at which two women were accused of killing a man. During the meeting, reasons for the victim's unexpected death and why he was subjected to ‘witchcraft’ were questioned and explored. While sorcery and witchcraft accusations might have violent outcomes, I argue that among Maisin they can be understood as performative rituals in which tensions and frustrations are vented in controlled ways, effectively preventing aggression and violence towards those accused. Accusations must be understood in the context of local identity politics that entail the questioning and redefining of relations and boundaries between gender, clans and cultural groups. In the case examined in this paper, the meeting provided a forum for the predominantly male accusers to re-establish gender hierarchies and social boundaries in order to restore social balance, albeit at the cost of victimising two women.     

Functional Family Therapy And The Treatment Of Inhibited Sexual Desire

Although inhibited sexual desire is very common, the literature indicates that it is extremely difficult to treat successfully. Functional Family Therapy (Alexander & Parsons, 1982) appears to be a promising treatment approach. This paper defines the major goals of Functional Family Therapy and applies these goals to the treatment of inhibited sexual desire, and a case study illustrates the utility of the model.     

Post-Suicide Grief Work In Family Therapy

The following case report describes the treatment of a family following the death by suicide of its principle male figure. It describes the way the various family members were helped to deal with the unresolved grief reaction that had come to play a destructive role in the life of this bereaved family. Working with the family group allowed a direct observation of the mourning processes of the various family members. In particular, we could see the attempt of the identified child patient at keeping the memory of the lost object alive become an obstacle to a natural resolution of her mother's mourning at that same loss.     

Child-Focused Family Therapy: Behavioural Family Therapy Versus Brief Family Therapy

We examined the effectiveness of behavioural family therapy (following the treatment agenda outlined in Fleischman, Horne and Arthur, 1983) and brief family therapy (following the procedures outlined in Fisch, Weakland and Segal, 1985), in the treatment of child psychological disorders. The parents of the 49 children referred to the outpatient unit of a children's hospital completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach and Edelbrock, 1983). Three scales of the CBCL were examined to assess the effectiveness of the two therapeutic approaches pre- to post-treatment. Significant pre- and post-treatment differences were found for behavioural family therapy on the Internalizing, Externalizing, and Sum T scales and for brief family therapy on the Internalizing and Sum T scales. Sum T scales represent the sum of scores across all sub-scales of the CBCL. Neither treatment was found to be more effective than the other.     

Family Therapy Process in a Family Therapy Seminar

The interaction between leaders and members in a year-long family therapy seminar is systematically compared to the process that unfolds between therapist and family during the course of family therapy. A five stage developmental process common to both is postulated and described: (1) Battle for Structure, (2) Naive Enthusiasm, (3) Conflictual Frustration, (4) Task Orientation, and (5) Mutuality. The dynamic elements of each stage are analyzed and factors affecting their development are identified. It is concluded that this five stage process occurs in all similar groups, but that the content of each stage may vary widely from group to group.     

The Family Therapy Congress in Belgium

Maps, Territories and Singularities Introduction to the international symposium on "Family Therapies and Network practices". Brussels, March 26 to 28, 1981     

Family Therapy for the Trainee in Family Therapy*

The growth and self understanding of the therapist as a person are considered by most training centres to be a significant part of the training process. This article reports on a pilot project which provided marital and family therapy for trainees in a two-year program. Therapy was established on a contract basis and included individual, conjoint, family intergenerational and small group. Interns and family members responded favorably to the program. Supervisors found the experience enabled trainees to maintain an experiential consistency with a general systems model utilized as the core theory of the training program.     

Family Day Care

The child care debate of the 1970s has been caught in the crossfire of conflicting ideologies and social policy uncertainties. Family day care, a largely informal but widely used enterprise, has emerged from this debate as an indispensable component of child care arrangements. This article reviews the literature on this mode of child care. Characteristics of the unstructured nature of family day care, intended to replicate the climate of the "natural" home, are explored. The changes in this informal system, with its increasing need to conform to regulation because of public subsidies, are delineated. The turbulent history of family day care regulation, which now stimulates an interest in new regulatory strategies, is noted. Research efforts in family day care are reviewed and the conclusion is reached that the data fail to demonstrate with unequivocable clarity a reliable direction for social policy. Further research directions are recommended. For the next decade, in which child care arrangements will take on particular importance, both the public and private sectors should systematically explore this informal mode of child care and its place in a range of child care arrangements.     

Teaching Family Therapy

Family therapy is a distinctive treatment modality, differing in techniques, objectives, and problem definitions from other modalities. Integrating it into a social work curriculum poses several difficulties because of this fact. In this paper several themes in the training literature are isolated and problems associated with assisting learners to shift their practice orientation from individuals to families are discussed     

Family Social Work/Family Therapy

The author responds to Witkin's (1993) comparison of family social work and family therapy. The author argues that family social work and family therapy share important commonalities. He challenges Witkin's characterization of family therapy as outdated. Instead, family therapy is characterized as having contributed important writings about gender and culture to its practitioners. The paper ends with reflections on the implications of social justice for clinicians.     

The First Thirty Years of Family Therapy

Gurman, Alan S. and Kniskern, David P. (Eds.) Handbook of Family Therapy .
Howells, John G. (Ed.). Advances in Family Psychiatry: Volume 1.
Pollak, Otto and Wise, Ellen S. Invitation to a Dialogue: Union and separation in family life .
Stierlin, Helm, Rücker-Embden, Ingeborg, Wetzel, Norbert and Wirsching, Michael. The First Interview with the Family .     

Tolstoy and The Heroes of Family Therapy

This paper presents Tolstoy's view of history in ‘War and Peace’ against the background of recent post-modern developments in philosophy and family therapy. Family therapy, like philosophy, is now caught between a modernist and a post-modernist outlook, between ‘systematising’ or traditional scientific tendencies, and ‘edifying’ or literary practices. The former is represented by the idea of the family as a system and the latter in a metaphor of therapy as conversation. It is proposed that the edifying philosopher is sounding very much like the family therapist of the 1990s. Both share a newer metaphor of keeping the conversation going, and the idea that therapy is philosophy and philosophy a therapy. The discussion is grounded in Tolstoy's understanding of heroes in history and some implications for family therapy.     

The Family Rule Concept in the Theory of Family Therapy**

This paper is an exploration of the usefulness of the concept of a family rule in systems thinking. Wittgenstein's analysis of rule conforming behaviour is considered alongside the early contributions of Jackson, Haley and others. Confusion has resulted from using the word “rule” in both its everyday sense and as a theoretical construct. A parallel confusion shows Itself in the activity of reframing where the selection of an alternative context is often theoretically based while the client receives an explanation in the language of everyday intentional actions.