Using the Tenets of the Problem‐Centered Systems Therapy of the Family (PCSTF) to Teach the McMaster Approach to Family Therapists

This article describes the videoconferencing training of a group of family therapists in the McMaster Approach to evaluating and treating families. A discussion of the key tenets of the McMaster Approach lays the groundwork for how these tenets were applied to training in a residential treatment agency for adolescents. The article serves as an example of how videoconference technology can facilitate extended training, even from a distance.     

Thinking and Working Relationally: Interviewing and Constructing Hypotheses to Create Compassionate Understanding

In the initial interviews of family therapy sessions, the therapist faces the challenge of obtaining and organizing the information that is most relevant toward understanding the essential concerns that families and couples bring to therapy. This article describes the process of clinical interviewing and case conceptualization used in training family therapists at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. This approach helps the therapist bring forward, and organize, specific information into relational hypotheses, or systemic‐relational conceptualizations, that allow both family members and the therapist to understand presenting problems within their relational contexts. While always provisional, relational hypotheses help anchor the therapist in a systemic‐relational frame and provide a conceptual through‐line to guide the ongoing work of the therapy. The process of interviewing and the construction of clear and complex conceptualizations of presenting problems are illustrated through case examples.     

Addressing the Person of the Therapist in Supervision: The Therapist's Inner Conversation Method

In this study a method of retrospective case supervision is presented aimed at helping the supervisee to become a better self‐supervisor. The method pays special attention to the therapist's self‐reflection and has the therapist's inner conversation as a central concept. The starting point of the method is an assignment in which the supervisee reflects on a case using a tape‐assisted recall procedure. The method helps trainees to develop experiential expertise to become more flexible and effective therapists. A case example of one training group of novice family therapists illustrates the use of the method.     

A Balancing Act: Integrating Evidence‐Based Knowledge and Cultural Relevance in a Program of Prevention Parenting Research with Latino/a Immigrants

Family therapists have a unique opportunity to contribute toward the reduction of widespread mental health disparities impacting diverse populations by developing applied lines of research focused on cultural adaptation. For example, although evidence‐based prevention parent training (PT) interventions have been found to be efficacious with various Euro‐American populations, there is a pressing need to understand which specific components of PT interventions are perceived by ethnic minority parents as having the highest impact on their parenting practices. Equally important is to examine the perceived cultural relevance of adapted PT interventions. This qualitative investigation had the primary objective of comparing and contrasting the perceived relevance of two culturally adapted versions of the efficacious parenting intervention known as Parent Management Training, the Oregon Model (PMTO). According to feasibility indicators provided by 112 Latino/a immigrant parents, as well as findings from a qualitative thematic analysis, the core parenting components across both adapted interventions were identified by the majority of research participants as relevant to their parenting practices. Participants exposed to the culturally enhanced intervention, which included culture‐specific sessions, also reported high satisfaction with components exclusively focused on cultural issues that directly impact their parenting practices (e.g., immigration challenges, biculturalism). This investigation illustrates the relevant contributions that family therapy scholars can offer toward addressing mental health disparities, particularly as it refers to developing community‐based prevention interventions that achieve a balance between evidence‐based knowledge and cultural relevance.     

Developing an outcome-based assessment for family therapy training: the Rochester Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation (ROSCE)

This paper addresses a growing need for cost-effective, outcome-based assessment in family therapy training. We describe the ROSCE, a structured, evidence-informed, learner-centered approach to the assessment of clinical skills developed at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The ROSCE emphasizes direct observation of trainees demonstrating clinical competencies. The format integrates both formative and summative assessment methods. It can readily be adapted to a wide variety of educational and training settings.     

Looking into the One‐way Mirror: A Pilot Study on the Impact of Reflecting Teams on Family Members

Reflecting Teams (RTs) are an internationally recognized clinical consultation methodology, first developed by Tom Andersen in 1985. Over the last three decades, family therapists around the world have used RTs to enhance treatment. However, this innovation to family therapy practice is not well‐standardized nor evaluated. The pilot study described in this article is an attempt to expand on the previous studies on RTs, and quantitatively examines RTs conducted with family therapy participants at a university medical center psychiatric institute. Preliminary analyses indicate that after participating in a single RT, family members may feel more hopeful, believe they can better support each other in times of stress, have more confidence in working together, and resolve conflicts. Additionally, the analyses suggest that family members may feel better understood and have more ideas about how to have a conversation with their family members, even though, after the RT, they may not view their family differently. These preliminary results suggest that further studies should explore the influence of RTs on family functioning.     

Conducting a Multi Family Member Interview Study

Family researchers have long recognized the utility of incorporating interview data from multiple family members. Yet, relatively few contemporary scholars utilize such an approach due to methodological underdevelopment. This article contributes to family scholarship by providing a roadmap for developing and executing in‐depth interview studies that include more than one family member. Specifically, it outlines the epistemological frames that most commonly underlie this approach, illustrates thematic research questions that it best addresses, and critically reviews the best methodological practices of conducting research with this approach. The three most common approaches are addressed in depth: separate interviews with each family member, dyadic or group interviews with multiple family members, and a combined approach that uses separate and dyadic or group interviews. This article speaks to family scholars who are at the beginning stages of their research project but are unsure of the best qualitative approach to answer a given research question.     

Neuroticism and Marital Satisfaction During the Early Years of Chinese Marriage: The Mediating Roles of Marital Attribution and Aggression

On the basis of three annual waves of data obtained from 268 Chinese couples, we tested an actor–partner interdependence mediation model in which spouses’ neuroticism was linked to their own and partners’ marital satisfaction through both intrapersonal processes (i.e., marital attribution) and interpersonal processes (i.e., marital aggression). Considering intra‐ and interpersonal processes simultaneously, four indirect, mediating pathways were identified: Time 1 Wives’ Neuroticism → Time 2 Wives’ Attribution or Aggression, while controlling for Time 1 Wives’ Attribution or Aggression → Time 3 Wives’ or Husbands’ Marital Satisfaction, while controlling for Time 1 Wives’ or Husbands’ Marital Satisfaction. This study not only adds to a limited body of research examining why neuroticism is associated with conjugal well‐being, but also extends prior research by focusing on Chinese couples and utilizing a longitudinal, dyadic mediation model. Such findings have important practical implications. Couples involving neurotic partners may benefit from interventions based on cognitive‐behavioral approaches. When working with couples challenged by neuroticism, practitioners need to help them address dysfunctional interactive patterns as well as distorted cognitive styles.     

Couples' Perceptions of Each Other's Daily Affect: Empathic Accuracy,Assumed Similarity,and Indirect Accuracy

This study examined couples' perceptions of each other's daily affect, using a daily diary methodology. Specifically, we tested the extent to which couples accurately inferred how their partner was feeling (empathic accuracy) and the extent to which spouses used their own feelings as a gauge for how their partner was feeling (assumed similarity). We also tested for indirect accuracy in couples' perceptions; that is, that assumed similarity in the context of actual similarity leads to empathic accuracy. Participants were 51 couples who completed daily diaries for seven consecutive nights. Results based on the Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model indicated that couples showed both empathic accuracy and assumed similarity in their perception of their partner's positive affect; however, they used assumed similarity in rating their partner's hard negative (anger, hostility) and soft negative (sadness, fear) affect. Furthermore, tests of indirect accuracy found that wives were indirectly accurate in perceiving their husbands' positive affect and both husbands and wives were indirectly accurate in perceiving each other's hard negative affect because they were biased. Complementing laboratory studies, the present study highlights that examining couples' perceptions of each other's feelings in contexts of daily life, and differentiating positive and negative emotions, can further our understanding of the role of emotions for healthy relationship functioning.     

The Art of Reflection: Turning the Strange into the Familiar

There are a great many useful articles on the dynamics and pragmatics of reflecting teams but few articles address what constitutes a good or inept reflection and why. I provide a conceptual model for thinking about what a good reflection does, distinguishing it from a nice reflection. With some further refinements in place, I then illustrate how reflections can be part of any relationship, not just clinical ones. We have opportunities to make them and to recognize when others make them to us. By using examples from my personal life—as a grandmother, daughter, radio listener, cancer survivor, and client—I attempt to ease the personal/professional binary, a project of mine for the last 35 years. In the second part of the article, I address how writing can serve reflection. Although best offered at the moment one is called for, it is never too late for a reflection. Writing allows people to offer reflections after the fact to those who have shared their stories. Sometimes, it is to ourselves we offer those reflections, when the reflector has long since dropped the thread of obligation or interest. I provide an example of working with iconic imagery to unpack meaning so that reflection can eventually take place, allowing integration to proceed, facilitating the strange becoming the familiar.