Family history and gender roles: Critical factors in practitioners' views of family interactions

This study examined practitioners' perceptions of family and individual family member functioning in relationship to family roles, gender of family leadership, beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment, and paternal division of responsibility in practitioner family of origin. Practicing counselors and mental health therapists rated two videotaped family interviews, one demonstrating a matriarchal style of family interaction and the second a patriarchal style. Findings indicated that practitioners were vulnerable to view a patriarchal style of family interaction as more healthy in comparison to a matriarchal style and that their perceptions of family members were related to personal beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment and to personal family history. These and other findings suggest that practitioners may be prone to errant perceptions and misguided intervention related to personal history and attitudes.     

Reducing work/home conflicts in employed couples: A proposed program to balance job and family demands

Work/home conflict is a dominant stress for workers in industrialized countries, particularly in dual-employment families. Interindividual (husband/wife) and interrole (work/home) conflicts in such families are a unique source of stress and adversely affect family and marital relationships as well as performance at work. Neither family therapy nor the stress literature have reported any interventions directed specifically at reducing work/home conflicts in employed couples or parents, although many workplaces today offer stress prevention programs aimed at individual workers. This paper discusses the underlying theoretical rationale for a marital enhancement intervention currently being developed for prevention of distress associated with work/home conflicts. The program combines marital enrichment and training principles with stress management techniques and aims at reinforcing shared coping resources. It focuses on four main variables associated with interpersonal processes: unrealistic expectations based on irrational beliefs, social undermining, shared decision control, and social support.     

Increasing husbands' involvement in domestic labor: Issues for therapists

As a result of the dramatic increase in women's participation in the work force, more relationship therapists are seeing couples who are dissatisfied with how domestic labor is divided in their homes. Although, this issue may seem therapeutically straightforward, there are many aspects which make its renegotiation surprisingly problematic and complex. This article is an effort to delineate some of these issues such as engaging men in therapy, exploring emotional issues connected with housework, and the mechanism of gatekeeping. Also included is a therapeutic framework for addressing client concerns about domestic responsibilities.     

Creating a safe place for growth in supervision

When people are afraid, learning is inhibited. In too many disturbed families, institutional settings, rigid organizations, and some supervision groups, a feeling of emotional safety is missing. The first step in teaching, supervising, or therapy is the necessity to provide a safe environment. The author suggests a model applicable to any supervision group, work group, organization, classroom, or family. A group model, specifically applied to the relationship between family therapy students or interns and supervisors, suggests ways to enhance growth by minimizing fear.     

The use of interpreters in family therapy with deaf persons

The paper discusses the use of interpreters in family therapy with deaf person families. Issues from the perspective of the therapist, the interpreter, and the family are presented.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in San Antonio, TX.     

Reexamining models of healthy families

This paper presents the perceptions of members of an alternative family form concerning the strengths of their family type, the functions of family, family models, and traits of a healthy families in general. The concepts presented are the product of a qualitative research study of shared home families.     

Knowledge assessment of mental health advisory boards

Informed citizen advisory boards are vital to the operation of community mental health programs. In order to provide relevant educational experiences, a continuing education program conducted a survey of the self-judged level of knowledge of a sample of board members in a large city. The sample consisted of 57 respondents representing 16 of 19 city mental health centers and the three federally funded community health centers located in the city. The results indicated areas of strength and weakness. Also, knowledge assessments differeed in relation to years of experience on advisory boards. Several suggestions are made about designing curricula for mental advisory boards.     

Countertransference as a guideline in the treatment of a psychotic patient

Presenting vignettes from a long analysis, the author describes many varieties of rage provoked in her by Meagan, a 29-year-old schizophrenic woman, and shows how the countertransference was the primary tool in helping to distinguish among the states, understand their origin, and work them through in the transference.     

Gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between body esteem and self-esteem.

Gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between body esteem and self-esteem were examined to assess the degree to which these variables change in relation to each other over time. Difference scores (between Time 1 and Time 2, 1 week apart) were obtained using the Self-Esteem Scale (M. Rosenberg, 1979) and the Body Esteem Scale (S. L. Franzoi & S. A. Shields, 1984) for 163 White women, 140 White men, 55 Black women, and 37 Black men. The results indicated that the correlation of the difference scores was stronger for the group of White women than for the other 3 groups, suggesting that changes in self-esteem parallel changes in body esteem more for White women than for White men, Black men, and Black women. The findings are discussed in relation to the prevalence of bulimia nervosa among White women.