Connections and Themes of Spirituality in Family Therapy

In this article, we provide an overview of current considerations of spirituality in family therapy literature and practice. We suggest that whatever practice of therapy is undertaken, implicity or explicitly it will reflect views on the connection between spirituality and family therapy--connections involving clients' and therapists' beliefs. A thematic framework based on dimensions of the instrumental and metaphysical is outlined. Clinical approaches and practices within these connections are discussed.     

Transmission of Family Values and Attachment: A French Three-Generation Study

Ce travail aborde la transmission de deux aspects de la solidarité familiale: l’accord sur les valeurs dans trois domaines (l’individualisme, l’esprit de groupe et les valeurs familiales) et les représentations de la relation à autrui (les modèles régissant les affinités). L’échantillon est composé de 95 triades englobant trois générations: des grands‐mères, des mères et des adolescentes. Les résultats mettent en évidence la spécificité des familles françaises modernes caractérisées pour toutes les générations par une certaine combinaison des valeurs d’autonomie et de solidarité basée sur un contrat social et le respect des hiérarchies. Les adolescents françaises montrent une forte adhésion aux valeurs familiales, mais aussi un individualisme affirmé. Les valeurs et les modèles régissant les affinités sont transmis de façon différenciée en fonction de leur contenu et selon des procédures variées. Cependant, les transmissions directe et indirecte débouchent rarement sur une copie parfaite. Des différences apparaissent avec les générations. Les données indiquent que les adolescentes sont plus proches de leurs mères que de leurs grands‐mères et que la transmission se fait clairement des mères vers les adolescentes. Les grands‐mères influencent les mères à travers leurs objectifs parentaux (obéissance et autonomie), la valeur attribuée aux enfants et les valeurs de groupe. This study addresses the question of transmission among 95 triads of three generations (grandmothers, mothers, and adolescents) regarding two aspects of family solidarity: agreement on values in three domains (individualism, collectivism, and family values), and representations with regard to self–other relationships (working models of attachment). The results underscore the specificity of modern French families which is characterised for all generations by a certain combination of autonomy values and solidarity based on social contract and respect for hierarchies. French adolescents show a high level of endorsement of family values but also a high level of individualism. Values and working models of attachment are transmitted unequally depending on their content and through a variety of patterns. However, direct and indirect transmissions are seldom an exact replication. Some differences are observed along generations. Data indicate more proximity between mothers and adolescents than grandmothers and a clear transmission from mothers to adolescents. Grandmothers influence mothers through their parental goals (obedience and autonomy), value of children, and collectivist values.     

The Multigenerational Transmission of Family Unit Functioning

Abstract

Bowen theory hypothesizes that a nuclear family's level of functioning is influenced by the stability or functioning of previous generations. This longitudinal study tested this hypothesis with 49 newly developing nuclear families and their multigenerational families. Family functioning was measured using a composite of physical, emotional, social, and marital symptoms of the family members of the current and previous generations. The quantitative analysis supported the hypothesis. In a correlation analysis of the first five years of this twenty-year study, multigenerational functioning, especially nuclear family of origin functioning, was associated with nuclear family functioning.     

The Family Cycle: Breaking the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma through Mentalizing

ABSTRACT

In recent years, attachment and mentalization theory have been used to guide and inform clinical work with complex, vulnerable adults and children, who struggle to make sense of their own experience or to understand and reflect upon the thoughts and feelings of others. Traumatized parents often have difficulty reflecting upon their children’s thoughts and feelings, at great cost to the child’s sense of trust and safety in the world. In this paper we describe the use of the Family Cycle a clinical activity designed to promote mentalizing in high-risk parents and children with histories of significant and often chronic developmental trauma – with parents whose children are enrolled in an intensive home visiting program aimed at avoiding psychiatric hospitalization. Our aim is to both help them make meaning of their own histories, and understand how these have, in turn, impacted their children. We first present the Family Cycle activity generally, and then use case material to describe its use with a parent in our program.     

Empirical Knowledge: Kantian Themes and Sellarsian Variations

Philosophical Studies -     

传承与嬗变——明末僧诤问题的反思

晚明时期,佛法复兴。汉月法藏针对当时禅门法统混乱宗旨不清等状况著《五宗原》,创"圆相说",意图重新恢复禅宗五家各自宗旨,遭到师门批判。法藏弟子弘忍作《五宗救》维护其师之说。法藏之师圆悟作《辟妄救略说》回应,从圆相说、临济宗旨、传承法统等方面批判法藏师徒执著名相为实法。僧诤问题揭示出儒家宗法观念对于佛教丛林制度的浸染以及佛法嬗变过程中诠释创新能力的困境。     

Reason and Faith: Themes from Richard Swinburne

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Sellars's Ethics: Variations on Kantian Themes

Philosophical Studies -     

Teaching the History of Christianity: Critical Themes and Challenges

At the November 2008 meeting of the American Academy of Religion, the History of Christianity section sponsored a panel around the question: “What are the key challenges, opportunities, and goals in the History of Christianity classroom today and how best should teachers respond to them?” Beginning with brief sketches of institutional context and identification of one or more pivotal choices each makes in the course they teach, the panelists explored critical themes and issues that arise in teaching the history of Christianity, first with each other and then through interchange with the audience.     

Substance Abuse and Prison Recidivism: Themes From Qualitative Interviews

This qualitative analysis explores the role of substance abuse in reentry from prison to society. Participants who recidivated (N = 20) in an urban prison system identified substance abuse as their primary reason for recidivism. Treatment implications are discussed.     

Liberation Theology: An Introduction to Its History and Themes

In the first part of this overview of Latin American liberation theology I trace the development of, and opposition to, the movement between 1968 and 1984. In the second part I examine six of liberation theology's leading characteristics: solidarity with the poor, conscientization (consciousness raising), the emphasis on orthopraxy, the recognition of structural violence, liberation and the Bible, and base communities. The article concludes with a brief overview of this special issue of Counseling and Values.     

Kantian Themes in Contemporary Philosophy: Graham Bird

Michael Friedman criticises some recent accounts of Kant which 'detach' his transcendental principles from the sciences, and do so in order to evade naturalism. I argue that Friedman's rejection of that 'detachment' is ambiguous. In its strong form, which I claim Kant rejects, the principles of Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics are represented as transcendental principles. In its weak form, which I believe Kant accepts, it treats those latter principles as higher order conditions of the possibility of both science and ordinary experience. I argue also that the appeal to naturalism is unhelpful because that doctrine is seriously unclear, and because the accounts Friedman criticises are open to objections independent of any appeal to naturalism.     

Kantian Themes in Contemporary Philosophy: Michael Friedman

This paper considers the extent to which Kant's vision of a distinctively 'transcendental' task for philosophy is essentially tied to his views on the foundations of the mathematical and physical sciences. Contemporary philosophers with broadly Kantian sympathies have attempted to reinterpret his project so as to isolate a more general philosophical core not so closely tied to the details of now outmoded mathematical-physical theories (Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics). I consider two such attempts, those of Strawson and McDowell, and argue that they fundamentally distort the original Kantian impulse. I then consider Buchdahl's attempt to preserve the link between Kantian philosophy and the sciences while simultaneously generalizing Kant's doctrines in light of later scientific developments. I argue that Buchdahl's view, while not adequate as in interpretation of Kant in his own eighteenth century context, is nonetheless suggestive of an historicized and relativized revision of Kantianism that can do justice to both Kant's original philosophical impulse and the radical changes in the sciences that have occurred since Kant's day.