At the Interface of Ethnicity and Recent Immigration: Family Functioning of Chinese with School-Age Children in Canada

This study examined the family functioning of recent Chinese immigrants living in Canada in terms of its status and those socio-ecological factors that influence it. Recent immigration has resulted in an increasingly large number of residents in Canada and the US who represent both an immigrant and an ethnic minority status. Among such residents are Chinese immigrants. Because of the potentially large number of school-age children who are part of these families, the family functioning of the new Chinese immigrants with school-age children would be important for the children’s development. This study therefore compared 112 Chinese families who recently immigrated to Canada with 90 Caucasian non-immigrant families. Scales were administered to the families to measure various aspects of family functioning. The results showed that the Chinese immigrants experienced a lower degree of family cohesion. Their socio-ecological factors were both similar and different from the non-immigrants, with a lower degree of social support and certain differences in child-rearing practices than the non-immigrants. Social support and child-rearing practices were differentially related to different dimensions of family functioning. However, these relationships were not entirely unique to the immigrants. The results have increased our understanding of immigrants and may contribute to the provision of effective support for immigrants. Implications are suggested for community support for immigrants and for further research.     

The Management of Disclosure in Children’s Accounts of Domestic Violence: Practices of Telling and Not Telling

Children and young people who experience domestic violence are often represented as passive witnesses, too vulnerable to tell the stories of their own lives. This article reports on findings from a 2 year European research project (Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies, UNARS) with children and young people in Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK, who had experienced domestic violence. It explores children and young people’s understandings of their own capacity to reflect on and disclose their experiences Extracts from individual interviews with 107 children and young people (age 8–18) were analysed. Three themes are presented, that illustrate children and young people’s strategies for managing disclosure: (1) “Being silenced or choosing silence?”, explores children and young people’s practices of self-silencing; (2) “Managing disclosures: Finding ways to tell” outlines how children and young people value self-expression, and the strategies they use to disclose safely; and in (3) “Speaking with many voices” considers how children and young people’s accounts of their experiences are constituted relationally, and are often polyvocal. The article concludes that children and young people can be articulate, strategic and reflexive communicators, and that good support for families struggling with domestic violence must enable space for children and young people’s voice to be heard. This is possible only in an integrated framework able to encompass multiple layers and perspectives, rather than privileging the adult point of view. Practitioners who work with families affected by domestic violence need to recognize that children and young people are able to reflect on and speak about their experiences. This requires that attention is paid to the complexity of children and young people’s communication practices, and the relational context of those communications.     

THE RISE,FALL, AND RESURRECTION OF (IDEOLOGICAL) SCIENTISM

The term “scientism” is often used as a denunciation of an uncritical ideological confidence in the abilities of science. Contrary to this practice, this article argues that there are feasible ways of defending scientism as a set of ideologies for political reform. Rejecting an essentialist approach to scientism as well as the view that ideologies have a solely negative effect on history, it argues that the political effect of ideologies inspired by a belief system (including scientism and various religions) must be judged case by case—and that the appearance of complex politico‐scientific problems such as the climate problem in effect warrants some kind of ideological scientism.     

Therapy with Refugee Families: What Is a “Good” Conversation?

This article addresses the question of what is a “good” conversation by analyzing “poor” conversations. During a project on family therapy with refugee families, we often experienced what we labeled as “poor” conversations. We present examples of a variety of such conversations, which we then analyze with reference to therapeutic maps and central concerns of the therapists. We describe four patterns of therapist/client relationships that emerged from this analysis. The main focus of our discussion is to clarify when “poor” conversations may be an important part of the therapeutic process, and when and how they should be avoided. We believe that the issues we raise are central to therapeutic work in general and not just to therapy with refugee families.     

Clinical Guidelines for Working With Stepfamilies: What Family,Couple, Individual,and Child Therapists Need to Know

This article draws on four decades of research and clinical practice to delineate guidelines for evidence‐informed, clinically sound work with stepfamilies for couple, family, individual adult, and child therapists. Few clinicians receive adequate training in working with the intense and often complex dynamics created by stepfamily structure and history. This is despite the fact that stepfamilies are a fundamentally different family form that occurs world‐wide. As a result many clinicians rely on their training in first‐time family models. This is not only often unhelpful, but all too often inadvertently destructive. The article integrates a large body of increasingly sophisticated research about stepfamilies with the author's four decades of clinical practice with stepfamily relationships. It describes the ways in which stepfamilies are different from first‐time families. It delineates the dynamics of five major challenges stepfamily structure creates: (1) Insider/outsider positions are intense and they are fixed. (2) Children struggle with losses, loyalty binds, and change. (3) Issues of parenting, stepparenting, and discipline often divide the couple. (4) Stepcouples must build a new family culture while navigating previously established family cultures. (5) Ex‐spouses (other parents outside the household) are part of the family. Some available data are shared on the impact of cultural and legal differences on these challenges. A three‐level model of clinical intervention is presented: Psychoeducational, Interpersonal, and Intrapsychic/Intergenerational Family‐of‐Origin. The article describes some “easy wrong turns” for well‐meaning therapists and lists some general clinical guidelines for working with stepfamily relationships.     

Perceived Intrafamilial Connectedness and Autonomy in Families With and Without an Anxious Family Member: A Multiple Informant Approach

Perceived intrafamilial “emotional connectedness” and “autonomy” were investigated within families with and without an anxious family member using a multiple informant approach. The sample consisted of 32 mothers with a current anxiety disorder and 56 controls, their partners, and their anxious and nonanxious teenage children. No differences were found with respect to the perceived family relationships of family members with versus without anxious mothers. However, compared with nonanxious adolescents, anxious adolescents perceived less autonomy in relation to both parents. Mothers of anxious adolescents also perceived their children to be less autonomous toward them and their partners, than mothers of nonanxious adolescents. In contrast with “autonomy,” “emotional connectedness” was not reported to be different between families with and without an anxious adolescent. Agreement among family members and the importance of perceived individual autonomy in the development of anxiety are discussed.     

Grandmothers and Mothers: An Intergenerational Comparison of Child-rearing Practices with Pre-schoolers

Changes towards modernity in attitudes and behaviours in child-rearing come slowly. Stresses may arise in families when the developmental understandings of grandparents and parents lead to incompatible beliefs and practices. This research used in-depth, personal and separate interviews with 126 subjects, grandmothers and their grown daughters, to ascertain domains of congruence and of disparity in the child-rearing attitudes and techniques reported by each respondent. Greater awareness of areas where grandparents and parents agree and where they differ can lead to more efforts to understand each other's viewpoints and to reconcile differences which otherwise might lead to feelings of alienation or rejection between family members from different generations.     

Toward an African American Genogram

This article addresses the inadequacy of the standard genogram for African American families because of its underlying assumption that “family” is strictly a biological entity. The author suggests that this assumption is not culturally valid for African American families who have a long history of defining “family” as a kinship based on biological and functional ties. Using this conceptualization, an African American genogram is proposed.     

The Nexus of Stigma and Social Policy: Implications for Pastoral Care and Psychotherapy with Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Persons and Their Families

Dykstra (2006) explains the well weathered approach to homosexuality in the Christian community “love the sinner, hate the sin” may leave many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people feeling unloved and alienated from a community of faith. As clergy and therapists grapple with personal ethics and institutional policy when working with individuals of differing sexual orientations, they may avoid speaking directly about sexuality and may perpetuate the factors which contribute to internalized homophobia. Psychotherapy and pastoral care by nature is political, as decisions are made about which behavior is adaptive or dysfunctional. This article presents an integrated conceptual framework for clergy and clinicians to understand the impact internalized homophobia has on GLBT clients and their families from a person-in-environment perspective.     

An Updated Feminist View of Intimate Partner Violence

In this article, we explore intimate partner violence (IPV) from an intersectional, feminist perspective. We describe how an updated feminist view guides us to a perspective on IPV that is more strongly grounded in an antioppressive, nonviolent, socially just feminist stance than a second‐wave gender‐essential feminist stance that suggests that patriarchy is the cause of IPV. At the time we began to work together it seemed that a researcher had to be identified as a “family violence” researcher or a “feminist” researcher of violence against women, and that it wasn't possible to be a feminist researcher who looked beyond patriarchy as the cause of IPV. We advocate critically thinking about essentialist practices in clinical work so that we can maintain an antioppressive, socially just, nonviolent approach to working with clients who experience IPV.     

A RULES APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF TELEVISION AND SOCIETY

A rule-based theoretical framework is presented as an alternative to scientific laws or purely interpretive approaches for examination of the activities undertaken by television audiences. Communication rules, which explains human actions in terms of its pragmatic and normative rather than causal features, is productively applied to the study of audience activity at two levels—the family and the larger society. Habitual, parametric, and tactical rule types are defined and described in relation to basic mass communication processes. Television-related interpersonal activities in the home are shown to be rule-governed while audience members and sources of media programming at the societal level are revealed to engage in rule-based interaction that perpetuates selected ideologies and their accompanying lifestyle models. Communication rules is proposed as a viable approach for resolving fundamental problems in mass communication theory building, including the “effects” vs. “uses” argument regarding direction of influence, and conceptual and methodological differences that have often polarized media critics and empiricists.     

On “Naturalistic” Family Research

Much is made of the desirability of “naturalistic” research on the family. Indeed, experimental research is often rejected for not being “naturalistic.” The purpose of the present article is to draw out and to examine some of the assumptions underlying such a position. The assumptions behind criteria such as “real,”“relevant,” and “typical” for research topics and settings are held to be questionable, not least because they are inconsistent with a communicational, context-oriented approach to the family. Alternative assumptions more consistent with this approach are described.     

Helping Couples Fulfill the “Highest of Life’s Goals”: Mate Selection,Marriage Counselling,and Genetic Counseling in United States

This article traces the history of modern genetic counseling to mate selection and marriage counselling practices of the early-20th century. Mate selection revolved around a belief that human heredity could be improved and genetic diseases eradicated through better breeding. Marriage counselling, though interested in reproduction, was also concerned with the emotional and psychological well-being of couples. These two practices coalesced most obviously in the work of well-known geneticist Sheldon Reed. Even as marriage and genetic counselling diverged in the post-WWII period, vestiges of these practices remain in contemporary counseling experiences with family planning and genetic screening programs. Emphasizing points of continuity between “positive” eugenic ideologies and modern genetic practices elaborates the diverse origins of genetic counseling. It also exposes how genetic counselors have become involved in genetic enterprises beyond standard clinical settings, and prods at key issues in the interaction between genetic science and social values.     

Creating a Participant Text: Writing,Multiple Voices,Narrative Multiplicity

This article uses the ideas of social constructionism to explore how families change by investigating the way our perceptions of ourselves in relation to others are formed through language. The idea that language has the inherent potential to generate a reply has strongly influenced our thinking. We propose that the reply to others is shaped by our initial reply to ourselves in inner conversation. Interaction moves back and forth from inner conversation to conversation with others, from monologue to dialogue, becoming the “stuff” of new narratives. The particular focus on language in this article is on how adding writing to the session conversation produces a “participant text,” a therapeutic narrative that is composed of the voices of the family and the therapists. These voices, often newly discovered or invented, allow our narrative discourse to expand and multiply. Using this approach with individuals, couples, and families from different socioeconomic levels, we have worked with mourning, divorcing couples, recovery from abuse, marital conflict, parenting dilemmas, and physical illness.     

The Unencumbered Child: Family Reputations and Responsibilities in the Care of Relatives with Alzheimer's Disease

Using a grounded theory methodology in exploratory interviews with noncaregiving and caregiving adult children, differences were found in their experience of burden, their focus, their suffering, and their sense of responsibility. Childhood reputations appeared to follow siblings into adulthood, and they describe finding their adult positions in the family clearly circumscribed and entrenched because of family legacy. Children who were in some way different and excused from family responsibilities in childhood because they were, for example, “spoiled,” a “problem child,” the “intellectual,” or “flaky,” appeared to be unencumbered as adults when faced with caregiving responsibilities for a relative with Alzheimer's disease. Although these uninvolved and unencumbered children seemed to take less caregiving responsibility, they describe their loss and suffering in relation to a loss of identity and selfhood, whereas other children describe their burden and the overwhelming pulls and demands made on them. These preliminary findings suggest the need for systematic scientific inquiry about families, including multiple relatives, family history, impact of family-of-origin legacy, family reputations, and family negotiation patterns.     

Jamaican child-rearing practices: the role of corporal punishment

The family is the most prominent social group that exists. It prepares its members for the various roles they will perform in society. Yet, the literature has unequivocally singled out the family as the most violent social group, with parental violence against children being the most prevalent type of family violence. While societies like the United States, Japan, and Sweden have taken a hard line on physical punishment and shifted to a gentler approach to discipline, harsh disciplining of children persists elsewhere. In the Caribbean, and Jamaica in particular, child-rearing and disciplinary practices that would warrant child abuse charges in other Western societies are rampant. This article examines the child-rearing techniques of Jamaican adults and their assumed effects on child outcomes. It also examines the plausibility of the assumption that the harsh physical punishment meted out to children is partially responsible for the current social problems of that island nation. We recommend approaches to tackle the broad goals of addressing familial and societal practices that compromise children's development and well-being.