The Development and Validation of a Family Wellbeing Index for Hong Kong Chinese Families

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Family wellbeing is studied worldwide. However, there is a dearth of studies on the wellbeing of families in Chinese societies such as Hong Kong, nor is there...     

Sitting In: The Experience of Learning and Practicing Family Therapy through Being a Co-Therapist in Hong Kong

This article explores family therapy trainees’ subjective experiences of working as cotherapists with a supervisory-level therapist in a Chinese context, regarding their perceptions of and positioning in it and also their opinions on the benefits and/or pitfalls of cotherapy. Individual interviews with a total of six cotherapists revealed three themes: (1) Cotherapy was perceived as an experiential learning journey that evolved from anxiety and excitement to empowerment and nurturing; (2) a collaborative master–apprentice relationship of openness, trust, and mutual respect was developed with both sides’ interactive effort, which included common commitment and concern for the client, the supervisor’s awareness and explicit address of the role hierarchy, principle setting prior to the cooperation, and honest pre- and-postsession sharing and discussion; (3) the dual-purpose supervisor–trainee cotherapy brought direct benefits for all involved parties and for others. The findings have useful implications for integrating treatment and training for optimal training/learning outcomes and for advancing knowledge transfer from senior to junior and from academia to the field, with reference to local cultural characteristics.     

Family functioning of Chinese families in an impoverished neighborhood in Hong Kong

Consonant with the family stress model, in this study family economic disadvantage, concomitant with cumulative family stressors, concurrently contributed to poor family functioning of 504 Chinese families in an impoverished neighborhood in Hong Kong, in which the latter factor appeared to be more pronounced. Implications were briefly discussed.     

Happy Family Kitchen: Behavioral Outcomes of a Brief Community-Based Family Intervention in Hong Kong

Positive psychology interventions commonly involve behavioral exercises to improve psychosocial well-being. Intervention effect on behavior is unclear. The Happy Family Kitchen project, one of the community-based brief intervention projects under The FAMILY: A Jockey Club Initiative for a Harmonious Society, was conducted in Hong Kong to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a positive psychology family intervention. We have previously reported positive intervention effects on family communication, family well-being, and subjective happiness. This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of the intervention on behavioral outcomes and their associations with psychosocial well-being. A total of 23 social service units organized and conducted intervention programs for 1419 individuals from 612 families in Hong Kong. Each intervention was developed with emphasis on one of five positive psychology themes: gratitude, flow, happiness, health, and savoring. Intervention outcomes were assessed at pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, and 6 weeks and 12 weeks post-intervention. Results showed that family communication time and frequency of meal preparation with family members increased with sustainable small effects up to 12 weeks. Theme-specific behavior change was observed in the gratitude, flow, and happiness interventions, respectively. Family communication time, frequency of eating with family members, and theme-specific behaviors, including gratitude, flow, happiness behavior, health attitude, and health behavior, were positively associated with psychosocial well-being. Qualitative data provided additional evidence of effectiveness with in-depth insights into behavior change. The positive associations between target behaviors and well-being suggest that improvements in well-being as a function of the intervention may be associated with behavior change.     

Family meaning of self-starvation: themes discerned in family treatment in Hong Kong

This study aims to identify themes from the treatment of Chinese families with an adolescent or an adult member suffering from anorexia nervosa (AN), through a multiple case study. This study reveals that self-starvation may be regarded as a cultural metaphor. Four major themes emerged at the family level: self-starvation as an expression of love and control, coalition of the AN daughter with the mother, family loyalty, and the powerlessness and helplessness of the mother. The themes identified are narrative accounts of the Hong Kong Chinese families, rather than causal explanations proposed by Western literature. The emerging themes are believed to be constructed and legitimized by traditional Chinese cultural values, with females being subordinated to and dependent on males and the self being subjugated to or sacrificed for the collective. Treatment implications are discussed.     

Development of Family Therapy in Ireland

In Ireland family therapy is a small profession, with under 200 registered therapists. The Irish family therapy movement began in the mid-1970s. By 1980 the Family Therapy Network of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Branch of the UK Association Family therapy had been founded. At present there are three main family therapy training centers in Ireland: two in the south (the Mater University Hospital, affiliated to University College Dublin and Clanwilliam Institute) and one in the north (at Queen’s University Belfast). There is no statutory registration and licensing of family therapists in Ireland. Accredited professional family therapy programs in Ireland are 4-year part-time courses culminating in masters level qualifications. A primary degree in medicine, nursing, psychology, social science or education is a prerequisite for entry. Family therapists in Ireland work in both private practice and the public health service. Most family therapists in the public sector are employed as social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists or nurses, and conduct family therapy as part of their broader professional roles. Couple therapy in Ireland is provided by family therapists, and also by voluntary couple counselors based in networks of local centers, some of which were originally religiously affiliated, without a formal connection to national family therapy associations. The three major future challenges for Irish family therapy are creating a research infrastructure, developing a career structure in the public health service, and introducing statutory registration.     

Development of Family Therapy and Systemic Therapy in Germany

The roots of systemic therapy in Germany date back to the sixties. Systemic therapy is one of the most widely applied forms of psychotherapy and counseling in Germany. The majority of therapists and counselors in child guidance centers, couples therapy counseling centers and youth protective services have been trained in systemic therapy. A high number of clinical psychologists, social workers and medical doctors have received training in this model of therapy. In the beginning, multigenerational, experiential, as well as structural-strategic and Milan systemic approaches were popular. Today, the post-modern systems concepts, solution-oriented and narrative approaches and self-organization theory appear to be predominant. Some centers provide research and training in behavioral and psychodynamic family and couples therapy. However, systemic approaches are clearly leading the field with over 10,000 people who have received systemic training and about 150 training institutes across the country. The critical attitude shared by many leading figures towards empirical research has limited its success in university programs. In addition, training is usually provided in the form of post-graduate courses rather than at academic institutions. Currently, three journals and one online-journal publish articles on various systemic topics. Many publishing houses have a series of books on systemic therapy and one publishing house specializes exclusively on systems oriented books. In 2008, systemic therapy gained recognition as an evidence-based treatment. Four years later, the appropriate authorities have not initiated the process of assessing it as a treatment paid for by public health insurances. In consequence, systemic therapy is not available on a large scale in the public outpatient psychotherapy system. Some additional remarks are provided on the history and current situation of systemic therapy in Austria and Switzerland.     

Development of Phonological Awareness of Chinese Children in Hong Kong

Three studies were conducted in Hong Kong to examine the development of phonological awareness of Chinese children from the ages of 3 to 8. Like English-speaking children, Chinese children were found to be able to detect relatively large sound segments (e.g., partial homophones) at the beginning and gradually progress to smaller sound segments (e.g., rhymes and tones). Tasks detecting onsets and rhymes in a similarity format were found to be easier for Chinese children than those in an oddity format. In addition, cross-linguistic comparisons indicated that Chinese children develop an awareness of initial consonants and rhymes later than their English counterparts. The possible impact from differences in the oral and written languages between Chinese and English are also discussed.     

Integrative Family and Systems Treatment with Parental Mental Illness: A Hong Kong Chinese Family

Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) is a systems-based, home-based, and strengths-oriented treatment model that has been developed and implemented within the community mental health system. Using a single case example, this paper discusses the application of I-FAST to a Chinese family in Hong Kong in which the mother was diagnosed with depression. The paper critically examines the deficit-based approach, widely used in the mental health field, which stigmatizes people with psychiatric disabilities. Treatment implications of families with parental mental illness in a Chinese context are discussed.     

Psychometric properties of the Chinese Family Assessment Instrument in Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong

This paper reports evidence on the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Chinese Family Assessment Instrument (C-FAI), an instrument developed to assess family functioning in Chinese populations. A convenience sample of 1,462 adolescents from junior secondary schools completed the C-FAI and measures of parent-adolescent conflict. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that five factors were abstracted from the scale, a finding which was similar to those reported in previous validation studies. Results also showed that the C-FAI was internally consistent and its scores were moderately correlated with measures of conflict with parents, providing support for the convergent validity of the measure. Finally, females perceived family functioning to be better than did males and age was linearly related to perceived family dysfunction. In conjunction with the previous findings, the present study suggests that the C-FAI can be used to objectively assess family functioning in Chinese adolescents.     

香港道教界隆重举办第十届香港道教节

<正>3月29日下午,由香港道教联合会主办的第十届香港道教节在香港伊利沙伯体育馆隆重开幕。香港特区行政长官曾荫权、中央政府驻港联络办主任彭清华、国家宗教局局长王作安、中国道教协会会长任法融应邀担任主礼嘉宾。香港民政事务局局长曾德成,香港道教联合会主席汤伟奇,香港道教联合会会长黎显华、周铭,香港其他宗教的代表,以及来自海内外的道教界人士和各届嘉宾共2000余人参加了开幕式。曾荫权特首、王作安局长、任法融会长、汤伟奇主席分别在开幕式上致辞。     

Paternal and Maternal Influences on Family Functioning Among Hong Kong Chinese Families

The linkages between dyadic relationships in the family and family functioning were examined in 378 Chinese families on two occasions. The following dyadic relationships were investigated: (a) parent-child relationship qualities reported by adolescent children (questionnaire and interview measures of parenting style, parent-adolescent conflict, parent-adolescent communication, and parent-adolescent relationship) and by their parents (questionnaire measures of parent-child relationship quality and demand); and (b) marital quality reported by the parents via questionnaire measures. Results showed that parents' and children's views of family functioning were longitudinally related to dyadic relationships in the family. Relative to mother-adolescent relationship and mothers' report of marital quality, father-adolescent relationship and fathers' report of marital quality were generally found to have a stronger association with perception of family functioning and its change over time.     

Family Strain and Adolescent Delinquency in Two Chinese Cities,Guangzhou and Hong Kong

Elucidating the conditions in which family strain takes effect in adolescent delinquency is one avenue along which to substantiate general strain theory. These conditions include family relationship and the type of delinquency. In the context of Chinese societies, the conditions also include the differences between socialist, collectivist Mainland China and capitalist, more individualist Hong Kong. We collected survey data from 1,026 secondary school students in Guangzhou in Mainland China, and from 1,116 in Hong Kong, to demonstrate these conditions. The results, which indicate the intimate relationship between parents and adolescents, verify that family strain has a very strong impact on adolescent delinquency. In this connection, family strain comprised parental support as a negative indicator. However, the effect of parental support on adolescent strain was only weakly negative in Guangzhou and even positive in the case of nonworking mothers. The differentials in parental influence between Guangzhou and Hong Kong are attributable to the different family policies and structures in the two cities. On the other hand, family strain exhibited similar effects on two types of delinquency, violence and status offense.     

香港见闻

2003年年初有机会去香港参加一次学术会议,感触良多,但有两点值得写一写,姑且用“见闻”的题名以飨读者。     

Professional Counseling in Hong Kong

The authors provide an overview of recent developments in professional counseling as related to schools, career counseling, and community services in Hong Kong. The strategic position of counseling professionals, counseling associations, and counselor certification is discussed. The future development of counseling in Hong Kong is also considered.     

Suicide and occupation in Hong Kong

Suicide rates were highest among Service workers and the lowest in Agriculture workers and fisherfolk in Hong Kong.     

Weather and homicide in Hong Kong

No seasonality was discovered in homicide in Hong Kong. Weather variables were not associated with homicide rates.     

Family Conflicts,Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms,and Suicidal Ideation of Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong

Applied Research in Quality of Life - The present study examined the relationship between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent suicidal ideation in Hong Kong, China. Depression and...     

Development of the Family Therapy Enactment Rating Scale

This report describes the development of a new scale designed to establish how therapists intervene and clients respond during effective enactments in family therapy sessions. The Family Therapy Enactment Rating Scale (FTERS) was developed by clinically trained investigators who observed 27 videotaped family therapy sessions and listed therapist interventions and client responses during four phases of enactments: pre-enactment preparation, initiation, facilitation, and closing commentary. Interrater reliabilities for the FTERS were calculated by training 6 undergraduate volunteers to rate independently a sample of 12 enactments. When reliabilities were found to be relatively low, a second study was conducted in which the FTERS was revised and reliabilities were calculated with a different sample of 21 videotaped enactments and a new group of 6 undergraduate raters. Reliability for the FTERS was found to be sufficiently robust to make this measure of therapist interventions and client responses a useful instrument for evaluating what takes place during enactments. Findings on the FTERS were used to offer tentative guidelines for effective initiation and facilitation of enactments in family therapy sessions.     

Family Therapy in Poland: Development and Current Perspectives

The authors of the present article describe the historical context of family therapy in Poland and current issues in the field. They highlight the fact that Polish therapists first began to develop the field after coming into contact with family therapy leaders from the United States and Western Europe. With the political breakthrough of 1989, there were new opportunities for multilateral cooperation, attendance at international conferences, and the exchange of experiences. Currently, the work of Polish family therapists, the place of family therapy among other forms of psychotherapy, and the related problems and challenges do not differ from other European nations.