Family Business-Owning Couples: An EFT View into Their Unique Conflict Culture

This study expands the understanding of business-related tensions within business-owning couples through an interdisciplinary literature review, through a longitudinal data analysis, and through application of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to a case study. Business-owning husbands and wives in this study reported that conflicts related to work/family life balance and unfair distribution of resources (money, time, energy) between family and business systems create the greatest tensions. Low family functionality, wives' role dissatisfaction, transfer of resources from family to business, and husbands' identification of wives as major decision makers were all predictors of wives' higher tension levels. Husbands reported increased tension when wives worked more hours in the business. Three elements of EFT are applied to a family business couple.     

浸润后现代精神的心理治疗模式--焦点解决短期疗法述评

焦点解决短期治疗是近20年逐步发展成熟的心理治疗模式,在西方社会得到了广泛的应用.主要从焦点解决短期治疗的产生背景、基本理念、应用价值及其局限性这三个方面对这种新兴的心理治疗模式作出简单的述评.     

Silence and Memories of War: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Family Secrecy

A personal journey and a scientific challenge, this is an autoethnographic study about my own family's secrecy. I knew my grandfather had been a German prisoner of war during World War II. We all knew. But nobody talked about it. Then one day I decided I wanted to do systematic research on the issue of family secrecy around my grandfather's war experiences. Researching one's own family can be called autoethnography. It could be said that autoethnography is an approach to research that aims to describe and systemically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto) to understand social and cultural phenomena (ethno). This scientific approach is quite new in the field of family therapy. This study has been an important personal quest, but it also led to important reflections on silences in families, on my own professional development, and on methodological issues concerning autoethnographical research. For one thing, it highlights some of the positive aspects of family secrecy and silences, and invites us—when confronted with family secrecy in clinical practice—to carefully consider the potential destructive and life‐giving aspects of the silence.     

Worried About us: Evaluating an Intervention for Relationship‐Based Anxiety

Although romantic relationships are commonly a source of pleasure and comfort, for some individuals they can be a source of persistent anxiety. The aim of the current investigation was to explore the construct of relationship‐based anxiety and to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief couple‐based psychoeducational session for this issue. Common behavioral patterns and cognitive tendencies seen among individuals with relationship‐based anxiety were examined, including excessive reassurance‐seeking, self‐silencing, and partner accommodation. In the current investigation, a single psychoeducational session was developed to address these maladaptive interactive patterns of behavior specifically. The session was administered to a sample of 21 couples and was found to decrease levels of reassurance‐seeking and self‐silencing significantly among individuals with relationship anxiety, and to decrease levels of maladaptive accommodation behaviors significantly in their partners.     

An Exploratory Evaluation of the Family Meal Intervention for Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa

Although weight restoration is a crucial factor in the recovery of anorexia nervosa (AN), there is scarce evidence regarding which components of treatment promote it. In this paper, the author reports on an effort to utilize research methods in her own practice, with the goal of evaluating if the family meal intervention (FMI) had a positive effect on increasing weight gain or on improving other general outcome measures. Twenty‐three AN adolescents aged 12–20 years were randomly assigned to two forms of outpatient family therapy (with [FTFM] and without [FT]) using the FMI, and treated for a 6‐month duration. Their outcome was compared at the end of treatment (EOT) and at a 6‐month posttreatment follow‐up (FU). The main outcome measure was weight recovery; secondary outcome measures were the Morgan Russell Global Assessment Schedule (MRHAS), amenorrhea, general psychological symptoms, and eating disorder symptoms. The majority of the patients in both groups improved significantly at EOT, and these changes were sustained through FU. Given its primarily clinical nature, findings of this investigation project preclude any conclusion. Although the FMI did not appear to convey specific benefits in causing weight gain, clinical observation suggests the value of a flexible stance in implementation of the FMI for the severely undernourished patient with greater psychopathology.     

Informative Disagreements: Associations Between Relationship Distress,Depression, and Discrepancy in Interpersonal Perception Within Couples

This study evaluated the associations between relationship distress, depression symptoms, and discrepancy in interpersonal perception within couples. After completing a series of discussion tasks, couples (N = 88) rated their behavior using the circumplex‐based Structural Analysis of Social Behavior Model (SASB; Benjamin, 1979, 1987, 2000). Overall, couple members were strikingly similar in their interpersonal perceptions, and tended to see themselves as friendly, reciprocal in their focus, and balanced between connection and separateness. As hypothesized, however, perceptual discrepancy was related to relationship distress and depression. Relationship distress was associated with discrepancy regarding transitive behavior focused on the partner, while depression was associated with disagreement about intransitive, self‐focused behavior. Analysis of affiliation and autonomy revealed that relationship distress was associated with seeing oneself as reacting with more hostility than the partner sees, and perceiving one's partner as more hostile, more controlling, and less submissive than he or she does. Partners of depressed individuals viewed themselves as more controlling than their mate did. Men's depression was associated with disagreement between partners regarding men's self‐focused behavior. Results underscore the importance of considering interpersonal perception when conceptualizing relationship distress and depression within intimate relationships.     

Parents Plus Systemic,Solution‐Focused Parent Training Programs: Description,Review of the Evidence Base,and Meta‐Analysis

Parents Plus (PP) programs are systemic, solution‐focused, group‐based interventions. They are designed for delivery in clinical and community settings as treatment programs for families with child‐focused problems, such as behavioral difficulties, disruptive behavior disorders, and emotional disorders in young people with and without developmental disabilities. PP programs have been developed for families of preschoolers, preadolescent children, and teenagers, as well as for separated or divorced families. Seventeen evaluation studies involving over 1,000 families have shown that PP programs have a significant impact on child behavior problems, goal attainment, and parental satisfaction and stress. The effect size of 0.57 (p < .001) from a meta‐analysis of 10 controlled studies for child behavior problems compares favorably with those of meta‐analyses of other well‐established parent training programs with large evidence bases. In controlled studies, PP programs yielded significant (p < .001) effect sizes for goal attainment (d = 1.51), parental satisfaction (d = 0.78), and parental stress reduction (d = 0.54). PP programs may be facilitated by trained front‐line mental health and educational professionals.     

Navigating Critical Theory and Postmodernism: Social Justice and Therapist Power in Family Therapy

The family therapy field encourages commitment to diversity and social justice, but offers varying ideas about how to attentively consider these issues. Critical informed models advocate activism, whereas postmodern informed models encourage multiple perspectives. It is often not clear how activism and an emphasis on multiple perspectives connect, engendering the sense that critical and postmodern practices may be disparate. To understand how therapists negotiate these perspectives in practice, this qualitative grounded theory analysis drew on interviews with 11 therapists, each known for their work from both critical and postmodern perspectives. We found that these therapists generally engage in a set of shared constructionist practices while also demonstrating two distinct forms of activism: activism through countering and activism through collaborating. Ultimately, decisions made about how to navigate critical and postmodern influences were connected to how therapists viewed ethics and the ways they were comfortable using their therapeutic power. The findings illustrate practice strategies through which therapists apply each approach.     

Addressing Culture,Gender, and Power with Asian American Couples: Application of Socio‐Emotional Relationship Therapy

Asian Americans juggle the intersections of multiple social identities and societal discourses as they respond to experiences of immigration, marginalization, and patriarchy, integrate collectivist and individualistic family values, and form families and intimate relationships. In this study we examine what we have learned as we apply Socio‐Emotional Relationship Therapy (SERT) with heterosexual couples of Asian heritage. SERT begins with sociocultural attunement and the assumption that relationships should mutually support each partner. Drawing on case examples, we illustrate how we practice sociocultural attunement as couples respond to the relational processes that comprise the Circle of Care (mutual influence, vulnerability, attunement, and shared relational responsibility). We emphasize three key socioemotional themes that intersect with gender: (1) intangible loss; (2) quiet fortitude/not burdening others; and (3) duty to the family.     

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Coach Contact During a Brief Online Intervention for Distressed Couples

The negative impacts of relationship distress on the couple, the family, and the individual are well‐known. However, couples are often unable to access effective treatments to combat these effects—including many couples who might be at highest risk for relationship distress. Online self‐help interventions decrease the barriers to treatment and provide couples with high quality, research‐based programs they can do on their own. Using a combined multiple baseline and randomized design, the present study investigated the effectiveness of the Brief OurRelationship.com (Brief‐OR) program with and without staff support in improving relationship distress and individual functioning. Results indicated the program produced significant gains in several areas of relationship functioning; however, these gains were smaller in magnitude than those observed in Full‐OR. Furthermore, effects of Brief‐OR were not sustained over follow‐up. Comparisons between couples randomized to Brief‐OR with and without contact with a staff coach indicated that coach contact significantly reduced program noncompletion and improved program effects. Limitations and future directions are discussed.