Family Therapy with Families of Holocaust Survivors

This is a clinical review of 7 families of Holocaust survivors who presented for treatment because of problems with an adolescent of the third generation. In 3 cases the problem was anorexia, and the remaining 4 had various clinical presentations, mostly related to separation-individuation issues. A common thread in the narratives that unfolded was that the trauma of the grandparent/survivors had been transmitted across subsequent generations to exercise significant influence on the children and grandchildren. Often, a more recent death or separation crisis had been the catalyst for these difficulties or a trigger that activated the Holocaust trauma. An outline of the therapeutic intervention is presented; it was based on a combination of systemic, structural, strategic, and psychodynamic approaches. It is suggested that open acknowledgment of the transgenerational issues played a critical role in moving families toward a more differentiated outcome.     

Community Family Therapy with Military Families Experiencing Deployment

The length and frequency of deployments in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are associated with increased vulnerability for both part- and full-time military families who stand to benefit from systems-oriented practice by marriage and family therapists. Community Family Therapy (CFT) is a modality designed to promote resilience both within and beyond the four walls of the therapy room, facilitate family connections in the community, and empower them for local leadership. The effects of deployment on families are summarized and CFT principles are adapted as a framework for intervention with this population.     

Multiple Family Group Therapy: A Review of the Literature

This review focuses upon multiple family group therapy, its origin in the intersection of family and group therapies, its use in a variety of settings, its specific techniques and group development in individual and ongoing meetings, its goals and dominant themes, its parallels in family and group work. Also discussed are evaluation of outcome of this therapy modality and those dynamics thought to contribute to family change. Areas for further investigation are outlined.     

Of Families and Other Cultures: The Shifting Paradigm of Family Therapy

This essay proposes that family therapy is currently undergoing a paradigm shift as a result of the ascendance of an epistemological focus absent in the foundational works that gave rise to the field's dominant clinical approaches. While systemic metaphors for the family are based on mechanistic, biological, and linguistic models primarily concerned with how the world is (ontology), postmodernism's social constructionist leanings give primacy to meaning, interpretation, and the inter-subjectivity of knowledge (epistemology). Thus, the metaphor of the family as a system is gradually being subsumed by a metaphor that construes families as interpretive communities, or storying cultures. It is suggested that this largely implicit transformation be made explicit in order to explore more fully the clinical implications of the new epistemology.     

Diagnoses,Relational Processes and Resourceful Dialogs: Tensions for Families and Family Therapy

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM‐5), given its psychiatric focus on mental disorders in individuals, presents families and family therapists with challenges. Despite considerable controversies over its adoption, the DSM‐5 extends a process of standardizing a language for human and relational concerns. No longer a diagnostic language of professionals alone, its use is medicalizing how mental health funders and administrators, as well as clients, respond to human concerns. For family therapists who practice systemically, particularly from poststructuralist and strengths‐based orientations, many tensions can follow when use of the DSM‐5 is expected by mental health administrators and funders, or by clients who present concerns about themselves or a diagnosed family member. In this paper, I explore how such DSM‐5 related tensions might be recognized, navigated, and negotiated in the practice of family therapy with clients, and with administrators and funders.     

Entre Nosotros: Exploring Latino Diversity in Family Therapy Literature

The term Latino is often used to describe a largely diverse group of individuals living in the United States. This very broad term minimizes within-group differences due to race, ethnicity, class, country of origin and impact of immigration. We conducted a content analysis of 78 articles from peer reviewed journals in the fields of family therapy and family studies focused on Latinos, published from 2000 to May 2010, to challenge the Theoretical Myth of Sameness. We describe our evaluation and offer a culturally sensitive clinical and research approach with Latinos.     

The Results of Family Therapy: A Critical Review of the Literature

A search was conducted in the family therapy literature for studied which reported on the outcome of family therapy. It was difficult to find any consensus on a definition of family therapy. Therefore an arbitrary definition, involving the predominant use of joint and family interviews, was stipulated. A total of eighteen studies met minimal standards for inclusion and were summarized and discussed in this paper. Only two of these studies could be considered adequate in their research design; the remainder of the studies were (with one borderline exception) considered inadequate. The clinical evaluations of family therapy were summarized and possible methods and goals for future research into the outcome of family therapy are discussed.     

Utilizing Movies in Family Therapy: Applications for Individuals,Couples, and Families

Movies, like books, can be useful and inexpensive interventions in therapy. The advantages of using movies in therapy are discussed, as well as guidelines for integrating movies as intervention. In addition, the authors conducted a survey of clinicians in order to collect their suggestions for utilizing particular movies with particular presenting problems. Results of the survey are included in the appendix.