Divorced Parents in Family Therapy in a Residential Treatment Setting

Divorced parents are required to participate together in the family therapy of their child placed in a residential treatment center. Different sources of resistance and treatment techniques are identified and discussed through a theoretical analysis and case study material. The therapy of these fractured families contributed to an elimination of recidivism and, according to followup reports, to significant and sustained improvement in the children's functioning in school, home, and community activities.     

The psychiatrist,the counselor,and the school

Based on a general systems analysis model, the holistic approach to counseling spans every level and interaction effect from the gene to the interpersonal to the community and beyond. One of the major functions of the counselor in this approach is opening and maintaining communications among groups in the various school and community subsystems. The author of this article, a psychiatrist, stresses the use of the holistic approach in (a) the training and role of the psychiatrist, (b) the school and its subsystems, (c) the role of the guidance counselor, and (d) the interaction between the guidance counselor and the psychiatrist.     

Behavioral Marriage Therapy: II. Empirical Perspective

Two recent published reviews of research on behavioral marriage therapy stimulated us to supplement these accounts with additional relevant data. First, we place research on behavioral couples therapy in the broader context of outcome research on nonbehavioral marital therapy. We then summarize the results of 23 studies of behavioral couples therapy not included in these previous reviews and conclude that these additional data on controlled and comparative studies do little to enhance the current empirical status of the efficacy of behavioral marriage therapy and in no case do they establish the superiority of social learning approaches. It is concluded that an open mind to all sources of data on the efficacy of marital therapy is needed if the field is to make meaningful advances.     

Family Therapy in Trouble: Psychoeducation as Solution and as Problem

The authors cite clinical literature attesting to the importance of recognizing the family, rather than the individual, as the proper locus of conceptualizing, diagnosing, and treating mental illnesses. Specifically with regard to severe psychiatric illnesses, in particular schizophrenia, family dysfunction contributes to the emergence of the illness, significantly affects its course, and strongly influences the achievement and maintenance of treatment gains. Currently, a movement is afoot to limit sharply the amount and kind of treatment offered to schizophrenic patients and their families. Rooted in a “medical model” or “biogenic” view of the etiology of schizophrenia, this school of thought prescribes psychoeducation as the family treatment of choice. The present article looks at some misconceptions regarding treatment that prompted a widespread turning away from psychoanalytically oriented family psychotherapy for schizophrenic patients and their families, examines the reductionism (biological and behavioral) inhering in the exclusive use of psychoeducation, and looks at the clinical dangers of such reductionism. Finally, it proposes that family psycho-therapists should not abandon a concern with the inner lives of severely ill patients and their families in the face of spuriously generalized claims made by reductionist researchers.