Personal therapy for family therapy graduate students

This study explores students' attitudes about personal therapy as a component of training and assesses the effects of providing a list of community therapist who were willing to see family therapy graduate students at a reduced fee on students' behaviors. Students' personal therapy experiences and attitudes about faculty involvement in their personal lives were also investigated. Most students believe that student therapists should have personal therapy sometime during their training, and the majority of students had al-ready been in therapy. Individual issues and relationship problems were the most frequently cited reasons for starting personal therapy.     

An evaluation of a partial training program in psychiatric residency on the later practice of marital and family therapy

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a survey of psychiatrists and residents who received marital and family therapy training during their second year of residency. The data indicate that such training has an immediate positive effect on practice and is carried forward into later practice. Practicing psychiatrists trained in marital and family therapy during residency report spending 25% of their caseloads in marital and family therapy which was seen as producing positive change in patients. In line with previous training, practicing psychiatrists define the unit of treatment as more than an identified patient and treat marital and family therapy cases themselves or refer to others for such therapy. Variations in practice and techniques raise questions regarding the structure and content of marital and family therapy training in psychiatry residency programs and point out the importance of such training in the later practice of psychiatry.     

Survival skills and ethics training for graduate students: A graduate student perspective

Graduate students in the sciences must develop practical skills geared toward scientific survival and success. This is particularly true now, given the paucity of research funds and jobs. Along with more elementary skills, research ethics should be an integral part of students’ scientific training. Survival skills include research skills, communication skills, general efficiency, and preparation for post-graduate work. Ethics training covers guidelines for use of animal and human subjects, data treatment, disclosure, credit issues, conflicts of interest, and response to misconduct. The objective of this paper is to describe, from a graduate student’s perspective, the need for survival and ethics training in graduate programs and to raise both faculty and student awareness of the possibilities for explicit instruction of these skills. Many survival skills and ethical practices will be learned without explicit direction and some are already part of standard training; but, this is not the case for all students or for all skills, so specific instruction is a necessity. Research faculty can use their own experience to help students to develop the proficiencies they will need to succeed.     

Value systems and psychopathology in family therapy

Two sets of values—the continuity and the discontinuity—are readily apparent in family conflict. Pathogenic relating erupts after an impasse between the sets of values. Husband-wife conflict, parent-child conflict, and conflict between the family and neighborhood or community are described in terms of conflict in value systems. Family therapy is a method for influencing the value systems.Each of the three role functions of the family therapist—the go-between, the side-taker, and the celebrant—expresses both continuity and discontinuity values which are described. Depending on his assessment of pathogenic relating and other features of family dysfunction, the therapist selectively expresses values that serve to disrupt and then repair destructive family interaction.The process of engaging families in therapy is crucial because many families, especially those that are poor and uneducated, do not like to sit and talk about problems. Short-term therapy works best with the majority of poor, uneducated families; it even works best with middle-class families. Short-term therapy works mainly because it least violates value expectations the majority of families have about therapy.An invited presentation for the First International Congress of Family Therapy held in Tel Aviv, Israel, in February, 1976. A brief version of this paper is scheduled forPsychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1978, but due to an extraordinary delay in publication of the above-named journal, the lengthier version here may actually appear in print first. The possibility is mutually acknowledged by the editors of both journals.     

Family systems training in psychiatric residencies

Both extensive research and common sense dictate that attention to families is necessary for appropriate care of psychiatric patients. However, training in family skills has often been difficult to integrate into psychiatric residency programs because of conflicting paradigms, turf battles, constraints of time and money, and confusion over whether family-centered care or family therapy should be taught. Current changes in residency accreditation mandate that family skills (not necessarily family therapy in its sophisticated form) be part of all residency programs. This article reviews the history of systems training in residencies, current accreditation requirements, and the GAP proposal for family systems skills, knowledge, and attitudes that that are teachable within the limited time available to residents. The application of these core skills is described using a case example and formulation. Challenges in teaching and ways of overcoming programmatic constraints are outlined.     

Clinical psychopathology, psychiatric diagnosis and therapy in psychiatry

Clinical psychopathology has a diagnostic and therapeutic purpose. On the level of phenomenology one has to deal with four paradoxes. 1. The paradox of gradual transition from normality towards pathology versus the occurrence of symptoms of a new quality, 2. the paradox of nosological nonspecificity of various symptoms versus typical constellations of special symptoms for certain diseases, 3. the paradox of pure and typical symptoms and diseases versus symptoms and diseases which are mixed and non typical. 4. The paradox of the prevalence of psychopathological phenomena versus prevalence of somatic phenomena in one and the same disease. On the level of etiology one must face the fact that there are not only typical endogenous, exogenous (organic) and psychogenic syndromes. Neurotic symptoms may have an endogenous cause. Therefore neuroses may be treated effectively with antidepressants.     

Recent developments in family behavioral marital therapy

This paper reviews recent developments in the area of behavioral marital therapy (BMT). New information is summarized regarding the long-term efficacy of BMT and the identification of predictors of positive response to treatment and to relapse. Finally, new applications of BMT techniques are reviewed (e.g., spouse-involved therapies as the sole treatment for presenting problems in which marital distress is not the primary focus such as anxiety and affective disorders).     

The marital and family therapy examination program

This report is intended to inform the reader—as fully as is compatible with examination security—about the Examination in Marital and Family Therapy used by most of the states licensing marital and family therapists in the United States. The rationale for the examination is given, its development and validation are described, and the knowledge base that it samples is provided. The examination is presented as a necessary and logical component in the development of marital and family therapy and as an essential part of the implicit contract that exists between professionals and the community.Although a great many people labored on the Examination in Marital and Family Therapy, and continue to do so, the National Exam largely was founded and developed under the leadership of Carl F. Johnson of Atlanta, Georgia.     

Behavioral-systems marital and family therapy: Integration and clinical application

Abstract

This paper describes our integration of two of the more prevalent approaches to marital and family therapy: the behavioral (social learning) and the family systems (communication theory) approaches. A discussion of the development of family rules from a behavioral point of view is presented as an example of conceptual integration. However, the major intent of the paper is to present a rather detailed explication of the authors' multivaried strategies for intervention, which are designed to integrate and innovate upon the major behavioral and family systems treatment techniques.     

Developmental perspectives and family therapy: The marital life cycle

Developmental perspectives have been part of family therapy for more than two decades with a primary focus on the family life cycle and individual development. Most efforts at recognizing a marital life cycle have subsumed marital tasks under rubrics based primarily on parental roles. This paper offers a marital life cycle based on marital development with specific tasks for each of four stages-the marital breakup and remarriage phases are not included here-and provides implications for therapy.     

Family assessment: Centripetal and centrifugal family systems

Abstract

A consideration of interactional style is useful to both researchers and clinicians interested in family assessment. This paper offers data and process evaluation scales designed to determine family interactional style, conceptualized as a continuum ranging from centripetal (CP) to centrifugal (CF), and containing at the midpoint a mixed area in which facets of both the CP and the CF styles are found.     

Recent and emerging trends in marital and family therapy regulation

The number of states in the United States that formally credential marital and family therapists has tripled to 31 during the last decade. This paper reviews and compares the basic licensure and certification requirements in these states, and explores a number of broad issues currently confronting the field of marital and family therapy regulation. Several recommendations for improving the quality of MFT regulation are also provided.president of the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards.     

Family psychology and family therapy in Japan

The development of family psychology and family therapy in Japan has occurred mostly since the 1980s. This development was originally activated by the major social issue in contemporary Japan of school refusal, in which more than 127,000 children either overtly refuse to or claim that they cannot go to school. From a family perspective, this problem is analyzed as it relates to the confusion that children experience from unbalanced and unclear boundaries in family relations or "membranes." An approach to family therapy that adapts systems theory and integrates a clay sculpting medium has been developed to work with Japanese families confronting this problem. The design and implementation of preventative family psychology programs applied at the community level are also an important part of the future development in these fields.     

Contrasting four major family therapy paradigms: implications for family therapy training

Four major paradigms of family therapy are contrasted: affective-experiential, structural, strategic and Milan. The differences are defined according to the way in which therapists think and behave in relation to their premises about change, and they are discussed under the following headings: historical roots and understanding of symptom formation; therapists' stance and techniques used in change; focus, goals and locus of change; and time perspective in change. Some suggestions are made with regard to training family therapists based on the differences that emerge when contrasting these models of family therapy.     

Family therapy training research: systems model and review

This paper proposes that a systems approach to the organization of family therapy training courses would be advantageous to trainers and researchers alike. A family therapy training programme development model is outlined. Using the stages of this model as a framework, the research into family therapy training is reviewed. The field still remains in its infancy and the quantity of research is relatively sparse. Developments have, however, been made and these auger well for the future.     

Family of origin as a therapeutic resource for adults in marital and family therapy: you can and should go home again.

This paper presents a general method of involving adults who are in marital and family therapy in sessions with their family of origin, offering a clinical application of the author's depth theoretical orientation. The method is based on the thesis that current marital and family difficulties are elaborations of relationship problems of the spouses in their original families. If adults are able to go back to deal directly with past and present issues with their families or origin, an opportunity exists for reconstructive changes to come about in their present family. This present work is compared with Bowen's methods. Procedures are outlined for preparing for these sessions and for overcoming resistances. Typical courses these sessions tend to take are described, and some preliminary results are presented. Several case histories are presented, and theoretical and clinical implications of this method are discussed.     

Family law issues in family therapy practice

Abstract

The American Journal of Family Therapy is pleased to innaugurate this new section with the intent of being at the cutting edge of the interface of the interrelationship of family law and family therapy. We introduce this endeavor with several articles on child custody-an arena of crucial concern in both disciplines. One article is a summary of child custody laws extant throu hout the United States. to commend it psychologically and legally. The third item, in keeping with the theme, is a speculative fable about joint custody written by a matrimonial attorney who practices family mediation and who has training as a family therapist. It captures the tenor of the times. The second article discusses a model for child custody ev a f uations, which has much