Child Participation in Family Therapy

The full involvement of children, particularly those of younger ages, in family therapy presents a personal and professional challenge to the therapist. Out of his own needs he may favor involvement with one or another generation rather than with the complete three generation family. This issue is discussed and suggestions for therapeutic use of younger children are presented.     

Client,Treatment, and Therapist Variables Related To Outcome in Brief,Systems-Oriented Family Therapy

Client, therapist, and treatment characteristics were examined with respect to how much of the variance they could account for in a variety of outcome measures. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine relationships among each of the client, therapist, and treatment characteristics studied and the various outcome measures. For the 219 families that were treated with brief family therapy, only a relatively low amount of variance in any of the outcome measures could be accounted for. The amount of explained variance, however, varied considerably from one outcome measure to the other. When the more homogeneous groups of clients (single parents or adolescent identified patients) were considered, the amount of explained variance generally showed an increase. Different sets of client, therapist, and treatment variables accounted for the variance in these outcome measures across client groups, demonstrating both the complexities of the relationships and the relative independence of various outcome measures. New variables are suggested for future research.     

THE PASSIONS OF PUNISHMENT

I criticize an increasingly popular set of arguments for the justifiability of punishment. Some philosophers try to justify punishment by appealing to what Peter Strawson calls the reactive attitudes – emotions like resentment, indignation, remorse and guilt. These arguments fail. The view that these emotions commit us to punishment rests on unsophisticated views of punishment and of these emotions and their associated behaviors. I offer more sophisticated accounts of punishment, of these emotions and of their associated behaviors that are consistent with Abolitionism, the view that punishment is unjustified.     

Ethical Responsibility and Historical Biography

ABSTRACT Lately, the demand for historical biography has remained strong, fresh works appearing with increased regularity. My concern is with the subjects of these efforts—the dead figures whose lives and natures form the bulk of the contents. The ethics of the professional historian provide writers of historical biography with some guidelines, but are these sound, substantial and enduring enough to ensure the just treatment of the subjects? My contention is that they are not, and I set out tentatively in this brief essay to speculate on some grounds upon which a fuller sense of ethical responsibility, respect and commitment may be built. The major difficulty in attempting this exercise rests with the actual nature of the subject towards whom any duty or responsibility is to be felt, and it is on ambiguity respecting this issue that any serious conclusions may risk shipwreck. Alternatively, if any sense of ethical concern is thought demonstrable in this context, it may rest upon premises that are fundamentally egoistic in nature.