Counseling E-Resource Guide: Searching for Marriage and Family Therapy Ebooks

Most traditional couple therapy models are based on the Eurocentric, middle-class value system and are not effective for today's psychotherapists working in multicultural settings. Multicultural Couple Therapy is the first "hands-on" guide for integrating couple therapy with culture, race, ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and immigration experiences. The editors and a culturally diverse group of contributors follow a common outline of topics across chapters, related to theory, research, practice, and training. They report on the application of major evidence-based models of couple therapy and demonstrate the integral role played by contextually based values involved in relationships, conflict, and resolution. Key Features Presents a multiperspective approach that focuses on specific cultural issues in couple therapyCreates a cultural context for couples to help readers better understand key issues that affect relationships Features a series of compelling "Case Examples" from the authors' personal therapeutic experience in treatment with couples from diverse backgrounds Includes "Additional Resource" sections, including suggested readings, films, and Web sites, as well as experiential exercises and topics for reflection Intended Audience This groundbreaking book provides an in-depth resource for clinicians, supervisors, educators, and students enrolled in courses in couple therapy, marriage and family therapy, and multicultural counseling who are interested in how diverse clients define conflicts and what they consider to be functional solutions.

`I liked this book. Though I am not a family therapist, like most mental health nurses I try to bear in mind the family relationships of individuals I am working with. This is an enlightening text which not only offer a framework with which we can better understand the severe psychopathologies seen in forensic work, but also gives examples of how it may be used therapeutically' - Mental Health Practice `I think this is an important book that crystallises complex theory into a user-friendly model, using case material and discussions from the therapeutic community. A must have for counsellors working with families, this will form part of the recommended reading on the Family Counselling course' - Barbara McKay, Relate Head of Training, Relate News `The book provides a good overview of a number of recent approaches to working with families as well as how the author thinks about them' - Stephen Bray, Nurturing Potential `Roger Lowe achieves the almost impossible task of bringing together various theories, techniques and case examples in clear and accessible ways. Readers of all disciplines, from front-line hard-pressed practitioners to students on therapy and social work courses, will be grateful for the simple and, above all, useful way he tackles the burning questions that arise in working with the family group. Highly recommended!' - Harvey Ratner, Brief Therapy Practice, London Family Therapy introduces practitioners to the principles of using a constructive and collaborative approach with families. The approach builds on a strengths-based philosophy and focuses on enhancing family resilience and competence in a way that is both time-efficient and comprehensive. It brings together skills from contemporary models such as solution-focused, narrative and conversational therapies and adapts them to the specific challenges

Drawing on many years' experience in practice, teaching and research, Mark Rivett and Eddy Street present philosophical, sociological and empirical views of family therapy. Balancing the perceived benefits against the potential limitations, they pose questions, which challenge those within the profession to think hard about their role. }} does family therapy work? }} can those most in need really be helped? }} is family therapy a means of social control? }} who does professionalization help? While most texts offer a straightforward and uncritical perspective, in contrast Family Therapy in Focus aims to stimulate debate among practitioners and to help trainees adopt a more reflective and critical attitude towards their own professional development and the development of their profession.

While iconic popular images celebrated family life during the 1950s and 1960s, American families were simultaneously regarded as potentially menacing sources of social disruption. The history of family therapy makes the complicated power of the family at midcentury vividly apparent. Clinicians developed a new approach to psychotherapy that claimed to locate the cause and treatment of mental illness in observable patterns of family interaction and communication rather than in individual psyches. Drawing on cybernetics, systems theory, and the social and behavioral sciences, they ambitiously aimed to cure schizophrenia and stop juvenile delinquency. With particular sensitivity to the importance of scientific observation and visual technologies such as one-way mirrors and training films in shaping the young field, The Pathological Family examines how family therapy developed against the intellectual and cultural landscape of postwar America.As Deborah Weinstein shows, the midcentury expansion of America's therapeutic culture and the postwar fixation on family life profoundly affected one another. Family therapists and other postwar commentators alike framed the promotion of democracy in the language of personality formation and psychological health forged in the crucible of the family. As therapists in this era shifted their clinical gaze to whole families, they nevertheless grappled in particular with the role played by mothers in the onset of their children's aberrant behavior. Although attitudes toward family therapy have shifted during intervening generations, the relations between family and therapeutic culture remain salient today.