The Social Construction of Unreality: A Case Study of a Family''s Attribution of Competence to a Severely Retarded Child

Some families develop unusual or extreme versions of reality and sustain them in the face of a torrent of ostensibly discrediting and disconfirming information. Although the psychological dynamics and functions of such shared constructions have been amply considered, little is known about the routine transactions through which these unusual versions of reality are created and maintained. This paper examines the "reality work" of a family that attributed high levels of performance and competence to the severely retarded youngest child. Observation of videotaped interaction between family members and the child revealed practices that presupposed, "documented," and sustained the family's version of the child's competence. The practices are similar to those characteristic of interaction between adults and preverbal children. The implications of this similarity for the analysis of cases of folie à famille are discussed.     

An Empirical Investigation of Interaction and Relationship Patterns in Functional and Dysfunctional Nuclear Families and Stepfamilies

This study identifies key variables that distinguish nuclear families from stepfamilies, and functional from dysfunctional stepfamilies. Sixty-three family triads (mother, father, child) were studied using five instruments: Family Concept Test, Locke-Wallace Marital Inventory, Family Relations Test, Family Interaction Task, and background questionnaire. Results indicated that functional stepfamilies are similar to functional nuclear families in that both exhibit good marital adjustment, strong, positive bonds between biological parent and child, disinclination to exclude family members, and ability to make mutually compromised family decisions. The key differences were less intense interpersonal involvement between the stepfather and child and a stronger tendency toward the existence of parent-child coalitions in stepfamilies. Similarities between dysfunctional stepfamilies and dysfunctional nuclear families include stronger parent-child coalitions compared to their functional counterparts and lack of mutual decision-making skills that fulfill the choices of individual members. Unexpectedly, marital adjustment was better in dysfunctional stepfamilies than in dysfunctional nuclear families. Relationship patterns were similar in functional stepfamilies and in dysfunctional stepfamilies except that they were more extreme in the dysfunctional stepfamilies. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical implications for understanding stepfamilies, and clinical implications in terms of how dysfunctional stepfamilies might best be treated.     

My Family Made Me Do It: The Influence of Family Therapists'' Families of Origin on Their Occupational Choice

This study is an empirical test and exploration of the folklore about family life correlates of family therapists' occupational choice. The folklore is translated into systems concepts, including role complementarity and the mutually determining effect of process and roles. Fifty-nine family therapists, 49 siblings of the therapists, and 51 undifferentiated, non-helping professionals were compared on FACES (29), The Complementary Role Questionnaire, and on demographic data. Inconsistencies in the results led to a critique of the clinical faithfulness of current systems measures. Family therapists did not differ on FACES, but did differ in aspects of roles from their siblings and from the control professionals.     

Common impediments to good psychotherapy — or hell is other people

This paper discusses the thesis that the practice of psychotherapy, like other intense human relationships, involves a number of inherent difficulties that must be endured. These common impediments include 1) the identity and status of psychotherapy as a profession, 2) the requirement of a delicate balance in therapy between thought and emotion, 3) the necessity of a resolution to the patient's transferential rage while minimizing the therapist's tendency to avoid that rage, and 4) the therapist's desire and temptation to control and manipulate the patient. These four impediments are built-in barriers with which all therapists must live. Our task is to attack the more approachable, controllable problems in our impediments, such as limitations in our training models, frequent sell-out by psychotherapists to entrepreneurial profit-centered models of practice, and unclear guidelines about which patients should receive which psychotherapy and when.     

Integrative Shifts for the Theory and Practice of Family Systems Therapy

This paper describes several disagreements among approaches to family therapy and proposes two conceptual shifts providing a more integrative perspective. The first shift focuses on the implications of different ways therapists orient themselves to the developing structures of the therapy system and to the disabled structures of the client system. The second shift reconsiders theoretical approaches in terms of the types of distance they require of the therapist and the types of information these distances provide and ignore. Finally, the paper also discusses a means for classifying the different types of goals therapists establish for their clients, emphasizing that these goals must be consistent with the clients' views of themselves and the world.