Family Therapy

Destined to become a classic, this handbook chronicles the latest developments in the field of family therapy and launches a new paradigm by laying out the future agenda of the profession in terms of theoretical development, clinical practice, and family research.

Global Perspective in Family Therapy: Development, Practice, Trends provides an overview of the development of the family and the issues and concerns they are faced with in different cultural contexts. Contributions from experts in the field expand on the different aspects on the historical beginnings, current developments, training issues, theoretical variations, future trends, and research potential in family therapy throughout 14 countries. It explores the diverse cultural approach to family therapy and suggests various clinical interventions that are helpful to clinicians dealing with families from different countries, including case studies, vignettes and research outcomes of family therapy overseas.

The problems of a family are often conditioned by the cultural issues its members face, regardless of their socioeconomic background. However, most therapeutic models ignore this important factor. Ariel's book offers a model for diagnosis and therapy that incorporates cultural issues. It provides clinicians and trainees with readily applicable concepts, methods, and techniques for helping families and their members overcome difficulties related to intermarriage, immigration, acculturation, socioeconomic inequality, prejudice, and ecological or demographic change. This approach enables therapists to analyze and describe a family as a cultural system, explain its culture-related difficulties, and design and carry out culturally sensitive strategies for solving these difficulties.

Postmodernist ideas are widely used in family therapy. However, it is argued that these ideas have their limits in meeting the richness and complexity of human experience and therapy practice. Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism examines postmodernism and its expressions in family therapy, raising questions about* reality and realness* the subjective process of truth* the experience of self.Alongside identifying the difficulties in any sole reliance on narrative and constructionist ideas, this book advocates the value of selected psychoanalytic ideas for family therapy practice, in particular* attachment and the unconscious* transference, projective identification and understandings of time* psychoanalytic ideas about thinking and containment in the therapeutic relationship.Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism offers a sustained critical discussion of the possibilities and limits of contemporary family therapy knowledge, and develops a place for psychoanalytic ideas in systemic thinking and practice. It will be of great interest to family therapists, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals.

Family Therapy as an Alternative to Medication critically and passionately explores the concepts and practices that constitute the interface between family systems based psychotherapy and modern biological psychiatry. This diverse collection of essays, eight by psychiatrists, is neither for nor against medication, but takes a sceptical view of the unquestioned dominance that medication-based treatments have achieved among mental health practitioners. Its viewpoint is that therapeutic attention to context and relationships, regularly diminished when medications are prescribed, adds to maturity, expands consciousness, and impedes the development of psychiatric disorders. Clinical examples, by both practitioners and patients, are used to define potential problems that arise from trying to combine a medical model with family systems work and also illustrate the decision-making processes and methods for applying family systems based therapies. This book will stimulate thoughtful conversation among students and practitioners of all mental health disciplines. Phoebe S. Prosky, MSW, studies under family therapy pioneer Nathan Ackerman, MD, and worked and taught at the Ackerman Institute of Family Therapy for fifteen years. She is Founder and Director of the Center for the Awareness of Pattern family therapy training center and clinic in Maine and has published numerous articles and chapters.

Encouraging the development of a personal model of supervision built upon the integration of theory, research, and regard for the uniqueness of clinical settings, this new text will prepare readers for approved supervisor credential while advancing their ability to blend systemic theory with clinical practice in the context of personal and professional development.

This book offers a clear, readable, comprehensive overview of all the knowledge those training as marriage and family therapists and counselors need to pass final examinations in their academic programs and licensing examinations prepractice. It includes challenging study questions, lists of key terms, and suggestions for further reading.