Family Therapy - Science topic

yes I often think about roles in the family and how things have changed -

thanks

Bowen is from Pittsburgh which is not far where I reside. I am quite familiar with his ides.

Family is a crucial social unit. The subsystems are: sibling, parental and marital.

Siblings can have ready access to the parental subsystem but not the marital.

This is triangulation and the clinician must assist the couple to reduce it.

Rich

I would also look at mental toughness and other non-cognitive skills.

Dear Ronald Asiimwe ,

Have a look at the Help Center link you can find while scrolling down and you will find: https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Help+Center. If you go to Research & Publications, this might help you:

https://explore.researchgate.net/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=950413 and this one as well:

If it all does not seem to work, I advise you to contact RG support team: support@researchgate.net since is it unlikely that the RG people will see this question and do anything.

Best regards.

By the way: Congrats with what seems to me a paper in an excellent journal.

https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?type=publication&query=the%20trans%20adolescent%20and%20processes%20in%20family%20therapy

Don't rush the process or short-cut yourself by starting to focus too early. You will likely change your area of focus several times over throughout your career. As you mature in the field, your experience will tell you where to go next. The recommendations so far are quite good. You have a wide variety of perspectievs here that lay out good options.

Thanks

At the Jackson website I do see several varies of Fox mice.

B6.129P2(Cg)-Foxg1tm1(cre)Skm/J Click for Repository Live definition

Repository Live

Stock No: 006084 | Foxg1-Cre knock-in/knock-out

Congenic Targeted Mutation

Foxg1-Cre knock-in/knock-out mice exhibit disruption of forebrain development in heterozygous mice, resulting in reduction in the volume of the neocortex, hippocampus and striatum. When crossed with a strain containing a floxed gene of interest, Cre-mediated recombination is expressed in the telencephalon, anterior optic vesicle, otic vesicle, facial and head ectoderm, olfactory epithelium, mid-hindbrain junction and pharyngeal pouches. These mice may be useful in studies of telencephalic development.

B6(Cg)-Foxp2tm1.1Sfis/CfreJ Click for Repository Live definition

Repository Live

Stock No: 026259 | Foxp2floxΔneo

Targeted Mutation

The Foxp2floxΔneo allele has loxP sites flanking the DNA-binding motif (exons 12-14) of the forkhead box P2 gene. The mice allow Cre recombinase-inducible Foxp2 knockout, and may be useful for studying speech and language development during embryogenesis/neurogenesis, speech impairment, dyslexia, cognitive function/flexibility, sensorimotor integration and motor-skill learning.

Many more entries if you go to the webpage and search for FOX

Dear Kemp,

Your comprehensive suggestions are very valuable for researchers and clinicians in that area.

Thank you.

Best.

Mithat

The Family Environment Scale  gives counselors and researchers a way of examining each family member’s perceptions of the family in three ways, as it would be in a perfect situation and as it will probably be in new situations.

Asking the authors is a very good idea. Otherwise there is a dissertation, which deals with the topic, perhaps you would find answers to your questions. http://digitalcommons.pcom.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1151&context=psychology_dissertations

I strongly believe in order to understand attitude toward each other, the best way is to tap their day to day behaviors in specified contexts.

Attachment or differentiation-of-self: Competing or complementary theoretical orientations in contemporary relational therapies. By Gingrich, Fred

Marriage & Family: A Christian Journal, Vol 7(1), 2004, 33-49.

Two popular theoretical concepts, attachment (Bowlby, 1969) and differentiation-of-self (Bowen, 1978), appear to be competitors in the arena of marital and family therapy. Attachment theory is the foundation of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (Johnson, 2004b), and differentiation is the core concept of Family Systems Therapy, represented by Schnarch (1991) and others. A review of these concepts and therapeutic models, along with reflections on how they are supported in Scripture, opens up the possibility that they may not be mutually exclusive. Both can be valuable resources for Christian counseling ministry to couples and families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

What Predicts Marital Satisfaction? The Role of Attachment and Differentiation doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/e559492014-001

By Moini, Sara; Regas, Susan

2014 [American Psychological Association (APA)].

Attachment and differentiation are effective frameworks for helping couples achieve marital satisfaction. The application of Bowlby's (1969) attachment theory to adult relationships is the foundation of the empirically supported treatment, Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT; Greenberg & Johnson, 1988), which is widely used with couples. Johnson (2007) discusses secure attachment as the foundation for couples having satisfying marriages. She explains that when partners can listen to each other's emotions, offer and accept comfort from each other and turn to each other to feel safe, a secure bond is developed. Differentiation of self has been theorized as fundamental to long-term intimacy and mutuality in marriages (Bowen, 1978). Bowen (1978) explains that when partners are highly differentiated, spouses are able to maintain clear autonomy and at the same time they are able to maintain an emotional closeness that is both comfortable and non-threatening to them. This allows them to enjoy a full range of intimacy. Although there is debate over whether attachment or differentiation is the most effective framework for helping couples achieve marital satisfaction, there is also evidence suggesting that attachment and differentiation may be related to each other. Secure attachment involves the ability to access support from attachment figures, allowing the development of self-reliant behavior. Differentiation involves the ability to achieve an autonomous self in emotional connection to others. Therefore, although attachment security and differentiation tap into specific elements of the relational experience, they share two underlying components: the need for intimacy and autonomy (Skowron & Dendy, 2004). Research has primarily focused separately on attachment and differentiation as predictors of marital satisfaction. Fewer studies have also examined the relationship between attachment and differentiation. The purpose of this study is to examine attachment and differentiation as predictors of marital satisfaction and to investigate the relationship between the two variables. One hundred and fifty two married men and women (56% female; M years married = 10; M age = 40) completed the following measures online: The Experiences in Close Relationships Revised (ECR-R; Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000), Crucible Differentiation Scale (CDS; Schnarch & Regas, 2012), and the Marital Adjustment Test (MAT; Locke & Wallace, 1959). Participants were eligible to participate if they were a heterosexual, married man or woman, living in the United States and at least 22 years of age. A hierarchical regression was conducted and as hypothesized, attachment and differentiation explained significant variance in marital satisfaction. After correlation coefficients were computed between attachment and differentiation there was a significant negative correlation between attachment avoidance and differentiation r(148) = -.450, p < .01 (one-tail) and a significant negative correlation between attachment anxiety and differentiation r(148) = -.555, p < .01 (one-tail). That is, the lower one's level of attachment anxiety and avoidance, the higher one's level of differentiation. Results suggest that attachment and differentiation are both effective frameworks for helping couples achieve marital satisfaction and that secure attachment and differentiation share underlying components. (PsycEXTRA Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

Hi Maureen,

The individual (or group) psychotherapy intervention for the treatment of depression with the strongest empirical evidence is called Behavioral Activation; this is the "active ingredient" in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. If you review the scientific literature, you will find it is as effective as medications at treating depression and more effective at preventing relapse. FYI, while there are undoubtedly cases where it makes sense to consider a purely biological source of depression (e.g., thyroid or brain disease) and to treat the underlying medical condition accordingly, there are compelling reasons to question the medical model of depression as simply reflecting a neurotransmitter imbalance (you can read more in the link below). Also, it may be worth considering that "having" everything doesn't necessarily result in fulfillment; for many (all?) people greater satisfaction is to be found in what you are "giving" through purposeful activity guided by personal values (check out the literature on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which combines behavioral activation, mindfulness practice, and values clarification to treat depression).

Warm regards,

Paul

Wiki has an article on attachment measures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_measures#Self-report_questionnaires

Lorenza Magliano has written a number of articles about BFT in an Italian context relating to both client and family outcomes and implementation

Dear Egon,

I wonder if the following resources would interest you:

Dear Lilia, 

As you see there are papers on the issue: 

Dear Christine, 

Check these papers out: 

Although a bit dates, you'll find some good material in Effectiveness Research in Marriage and Family Therapy Paperback – October 24, 2002

by Douglas H. Sprenkle (Author), pubished by the American Associaton for Mariage and Family Therapy (AAMFT).

The premier book for effectiveness research on marriage and family therapy, written by eminent scholars in the field. Chapters include:Conduct Disorder and Delinquency; Childhood Behavioral and Emotional Disorders; Alcohol Abuse; Marital Problems; Relationship Enhancement; Domestic Violence; Severe Mental Illness; Affective Disorders; Physical Disorders and Meta-Analysis of MFT Interventions.

More dated, but a classic in the field:

Family Therapy Effectiveness Paperback – October 1, 1995

by William Pinsof (Author), Lyman Wynn (Author) Also published by AAMFT

This publication presents thorough, detailed research on the efficacy of marriage and family therapy. It offers proof that marriage and family therapy is a distinct and cost-effective form of mental health treatment. Use this data when marketing your MFT practice.

I'd advise you to see what has been published in recent issues of the AAMFT journal and also in Family Psychology, the official journal of Division 43 of the American Psychological Association.

A recent book on research method is

Advanced Methods in Family Therapy Research: A Focus on Validity and Change 1st Edition

by Richard B Miller (Editor), Lee N. Johnson (Editor)  Published by Routledge

Research is vital in moving the field of family therapy forward, but the myriad of possibilities inherent in working with systems and individuals can overwhelm even the most seasoned researcher. Advanced Methods in Family Therapy Research is the best resource to address the day-to-day questions that researchers have as they investigate couples and families, and the best source for learning long-term theory and methodology. The contributors of this volume share their wisdom on a wide variety of topics including validity concerns, measuring interpersonal process and relational change, dyadic data analysis (demonstrated through a sample research study), mixed methods studies, and recruitment and retention. The volume contains one of the most detailed descriptions of data collections and covers interviewing, using questionnaires, and observing brain activity. Also addressed are suggestions to meaningfully reduce cultural bias, to conduct ethical research, and, in the Health Services Research chapter, to examine interventions for clients in various income brackets. A separate, ground-breaking chapter also addresses psychophysiological research in a couple and family therapeutic context. As an added benefit, readers will learn how to become informed consumers of journal articles and studies, how to produce quality, publishable research, and how to write fundable grant proposals. Each chapter provides a clear and detailed guide for students, researchers, and professionals, and as a whole Advanced Methods in Family Therapy Research advances the field by teaching readers how to provide evidence that marriage and family therapy not only relieves symptoms, but also effects behavioral change in all family members.p

Thank you very much, Béatrice and María Fernanda, for this articles, manual, and www describing SOFTA developtment, use and rating. Nevertheless, I'm afraid the answer to my question is not included in that documents. I'm not looking for SOFTA dimensions rating procedure, but for stablished criteria about SOFTA dimension rates in order to classify cases in two clearly different groups: good vs. insufficient expanded therapeutic alliance.

Look at the historical work of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, especially the work of Harry Aponte. His classic book is Bread & Spirit: Therapy with the New Poor: Diversity of Race, Culture, and Values.

By Aponte, Harry J. 1994.

Stressing culture, community, and choice, this book speaks to therapy for the new poor, a people poor more because they have lost their spirit than because they lack bread. The author's perspective arises from the theory and techniques of structural family therapy, but he goes beyond that view to reach for meaning in people's identities, traditions, and legacies. He urges therapists to recognize and work with spiritual forces in the poor and to avoid opportunistic practical solutions that assume that they are too poor, hungry, and downtrodden to care about meaning and purpose.

[The author] shows specifically how this can be done in therapy. . . . These vignettes show the subtle process of connecting with people, respecting their experiences and their values, helping them locate strengths and resources both within themselves and within the community, and making the changes that will restore health not only to individual families but also to the community.

He also proposes a training program to enhance awareness of diversity of race, culture, and values in the person of the therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, All rights reserved)

You might also check out the work of Nancy Boyd-Franklin: Intersections of race, class, and poverty: Challenges and resilience in African American families.

By Boyd-Franklin, Nancy; Karger, Melanie

Walsh, Froma (Ed), (2012). Normal family processes: Growing diversity and complexity (4th ed.). , (pp. 273-296). New York, NY, US: Guilford Press, xv, 592 pp.

In order to evaluate what is "normal" in the development of any family, clinicians and researchers must explore the larger social context in which the family lives (Hines & Boyd-Franklin, 2005; Pinderhughes, 2002; Walsh, Chapter 1, this volume). Race and class are two of the most complex and emotionally loaded issues in the United States. For poor, inner-city African American families, the day-to-day realities of racism, discrimination, classism, poverty, homelessness, violence, crime, and drugs create forces that continually threaten the family's survival (Sampson & Wilson, 2005). In the report, The State of Black America 2009, published by the National Urban League, Jones (2009) indicated, "Ironically, even as an African American man holds the highest office in this country, African Americans remain twice as likely as whites to be unemployed; three times more likely to live in poverty, and more than six times as likely to be incarcerated" (p. 1). The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework that will be helpful for clinicians in understanding and working with African American families. Many clinicians who have no framework with which to view these complex realities may become overwhelmed (Boyd-Franklin, 2003; Pinderhughes, 1989; Sue, 2003). The first part of the chapter explores these issues in depth, and the second part utilizes a multisystems model (Boyd-Franklin, 2003) in order to empower families and the clinicians who work with them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

Dear Nick,

Although John's comments are helpful I guess this highlights the difference between collecting data as a programme evaluation (not for publication but for internal quality assurance purposes) or whether this is research for possible publication in the scientific/public domain. If the latter, then guardian consent and child assent seem applicable - certainly in our own context in South Africa.

I have developed two clinical models for generalist practice: 

Calgary Family Assessment Model and Calgary Family Intervention Model.  

You might want to check out these two books:

McGoldrick, M. (Ed.). (1998). Re-visioning family therapy: Race, culture, and gender in clinical practice. New York: Guilford Press.

McGoldrick, M., Pearce, J. K., & Giordano, J. (Eds.). (1982). Ethnicity and family therapy. New York: Guilford. [2nd edition 1995]

Obviously it has something to do with gender roles, which are culturally and ethnically defined. And beyond that, with the "rules" that govern both how and when it's OK to ask for help. Which gets tangled up with understanding psychotherapy as an indicator of weakness or of admitting that I need to make changes in myself.

Dear Ashley,

Here  are the methods:

Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment. The Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment29 is a structured interview for use with both children and parents or guardians that enables interviewers to determine whether symptoms, as defined in an extensive glossary, are present or absent, and to code their frequency, duration, and onset. The Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment scoring algorithms can be used to generate either diagnoses made using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV),30 or scale scores that count the number of DSM-IV psychiatric symptoms relating to any of 29 separate diagnoses or groups of diagnoses. For these analyses, in addition to DSM-IV diagnoses, scale scores were created to cover 2 broad categories of symptoms: those occurring in an emotional disorder (depression or anxiety) and those consistent with a behavioral disorder (conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder).

To obtain relatively stable estimates of symptom scores for each child over time, we calculated 3 mean 4-year symptom scores for the period before the casino opened (1993-1996): 1 for all symptoms, and 1 each for behavioral and emotional symptoms separately. Another 3 symptom scores were calculated for the 4-year period after the casino opened (1997-2000). These 6 mean symptom scores served as the primary outcome measure for all analyses. Children also were classified as having 1 or more emotional disorders or behavioral disorders in the period before and after the casino opening. Both types of disorder were entered together into the models to control for comorbidity.31

Classification Variable. The adult respondent (usually the mother) provided information about total family income and sources of income (from earnings, welfare, etc) and rank ordered the sources from the largest to the smallest percentage of total family income. The mean family income for the 4 years before and the 4 years after the casino opened was calculated separately. Families were defined as poor if the mean income for the 4-year period, adjusted for family size and missing data, was below the federal poverty line for that year, using the Department of Health and Human Services guidelines (available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/threshld.html). Results of repeated analyses using the median were very similar.

Families then were classified into 3 groups: (1) persistently poor, those families below the federal poverty line before and after the casino opened; (2) ex-poor, those families who moved out of poverty after the casino opened; and (3) never poor, those families above the poverty line before and after the casino opened. The fourth possible group, the newly poor (those families who were not poor before the casino opened but became poor later), were excluded from all analyses because of the small number of them (n = 8) among the American Indian families.

Hello, Richard and Béatrice. To answer the question baldly is "No," and I confess that I had not picked up subsequently on Adler's evolution. My excuse is that I hail from the Rogerian camp. Having gotten that out of the way, I am greatly intrigued by several aspects of your conversation. Neither in order nor exclusively: (1) The study and appreciation of the growth and development of the ideas of any great thinker is always enlightening. (2) The notion of power, rather than pleasure, being fundamental to the psychology of neurosis rings true if one considers human evolution (the archaeology of neurosis and the theoretical reconstruction of human development, as it were). (3) Which leaves me in a position. The link to Durbin 2004 <http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-128445468.html> goes to an Oops page, regrettably.  I am left, as an unwashed and unlearned undergraduate, seeking bibliographical signposts. Where do you suggest I begin?

Thanks, Billy. 

Hi Egon,

I came back from holidays just now and saw the message Andrew left for me. Andrew is acurate in saying that we use a variation of the Duncan and Miller ORS as part of our evaluation. I could send you a powerpoint with information of the service and the method of evaluation as well as early results if you want. I don't seem to be able to attach it to this web so please advise of a direct email address. Regards, Maria 

I don't know of any but it might be worth looking at Katy Gold's work. 

GOLD, K. J. 2007. Navigating care after a baby dies: a systematic review of parent experiences with health providers. J Perinatol, 27, 230-7.

GOLD, K. J., DALTON, V. K. & SCHWENK, T. L. 2007. Hospital care for parents after perinatal death. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 109, 1156-66.

Thank you for continuing to help me with my research. This is an excellent resource; unfortunately, it's not quite what I'm looking for.

this looks at the barriers as well as the enables for family focused practice (but with a specific focus on involving children);

Maybery, D.J., & Reupert, A.E. (2009). Parental mental illness: A review of barriers and issues for working with families and children. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 16(9), 784-791.

Thanks Renee - parental warm would fit the compassion parameters

Thanks Chris - self-compassion is a good link too

Thanks Michael for pointing me in that direction - very interesting

Daer Beatrice

Thank you for your contributions. The publication of Rubin A. (2012) will be of interest.

Greetings

Egon

In the U.S.A.: Child-Parent Psychotherapy which is within a psychodynamic framework is a manualized, evidence-based treatment for multi-problem families with violence exposure (see Lieberman AF et al.,. 2005). The David Olds homevisiting model was also designed for high-risk teen moms and infants.

To all of you,

Thank you very much for the additional contributions.

Egon

I'll speak just for myself here and say that I believe it is always possible to find something in the client's life (i.e., which is not imposed by the therapist) that can help him or her move forward. I think, inspired by Nietzsche, Bakhtin, and others, that this is probably even a condition of life itself - the capacity to move beyond what is, what we have become, to exceed the limits that have been imposed on us, and move into a different life territory. That capacity is 'already there', I think, and so in this minimal sense I believe the person has the eternal capacity to find some new answers to old questions. Bakhtin says something like: as long as the person is alive, we can be sure that he or she is not yet "finalized", and has not yet spoken his or her final word. I like that very much.

I don't mean that finding new ways is easy - I guess that's why therapy can be helpful; it's not at all easy to change, to refuse to be who we (and others) thought we were. We might need help with that. And the shift might not be as grand as my words suggest. For instance, I'm reading some cases of Jim Bugental's at the moment, and there's an interesting, but subtle shift that occurs for one client: he goes from the declaration "I am nobody" to the question "can I become somebody?". I think that's quite a big shift - the beginning of a new 'answer', if you like. The therapist didn't 'give' him that new question; the client just moved into it.

But I think it is easy to miss such subtle (client initiated) shifts, and falsely conclude that nothing is happening, or that they are 'stuck'. We then might convince ourselves that it is up to us (the "experts") to provide a solution/ answer/ direction. I wonder if such a conclusion means only that we didn't really listen properly - for the little shifts and openings into new possibilities that the client often unwittingly shows us. When I think of my own work, I see it as part of my job to recognize these tiny openings into different, agentive, hopeful ways of being or thinking that emerge not from my own supposed wisdom, but from my clients' talk or actions. I think clients miss these openings too, as they (like all of us) easily get wrapped up in familiar stories, scripts, and patterns. But they are there. And they might not yet be fully formed 'answers' (to use the terminology of the original question), but at least they hint at pathways that might lead towards those answers.

Dear colleagues,

thank you for your suggestions.

herewith two more topics.

1. The whole is greater than the sum of all its parts:these features are the emergent qualities of the system.

2. According to the first order cybernetics it is necessary and sufficient an hic et nunc orientation of the observation. The second order cybernetics includes a time oriented observation, So the subjectivity of the observer is crucial to the evaluation.

Hi Sian,

You can check out the practice-based outcome literature. For a quick book review you can check out Gaete, J. (2011). Developing and delivering practice-based evidence: A guide for the psychological therapies. Psychotherapy research, 1-3. doi: 10.1080/10503307.2011.611544

more specifically, you can check:

Franklin, C., Corcoran, J., Nowicki, J., & Streeter, C. (1997). Using client self-anchored scales to measure outcomes in solution-focused therapy. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 16, 246-265.

They have expanded the scaling technique (ST) (Berg & de Shazer, 1993) as an outcome measure. The ST is usually used to assess problems and develop therapy goals with clients with an ordinal scale (10 point continuum). Therapists use client’s preferred meanings (the viewing or 'perspective' you mentioned), and work with them in defining behavioral change goals (the doing). Franklin et al. (1997) show with three different clinical cases (using a single case design for each one of them), the ST can be used to collect reliable, valid and relevant outcome data, which allows both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data.

hope that helps,

j

Hi Daphna¡ My answer: Personal Construct Psychology, one theory of Kelly. http://www.pcp-net.org

Greetings¡

In Finland the profession of psychotherapist is one of the health care professions. Until the end of last year the training programs were provide in a quite heterogeneous ways, and the officials of the state provided the applicants with the diploma. The training programs consisted then, and still do, of theoretical seminars, supervision, clinical work during the training program, plus the trainee's own psychotherapy. This was the basis for all the modes of psychotherapy, inclunding family therapy. From the beginning of 2012 the universities are a necessary, and obligatory, agents in planning and providing the programs. Universities are also responsible for the quality control of all the training programs.

The training program of family therapist (as one specific mode of psychotherapy training) is 60 ECTS minimum. This means that the program takes from three to four years studies.

The present legislation is so new that it is far too early to evaluate pros and cons. The fact is that the need for family therapists and other psychotherapists is growing, and, at least temporarily, the number of new psychotherapists is diminishing until the new system realle gets going.

Aarno Laitila

I still tend to agree with the previous post where you are analyzing the basics and complexity of the family structure. You can also use the theory of resilience when you are able to piece together the elements of the family structure and their interactions from a strengths approach. What were the strength elements that held the family together when they faced smaller crises in the past? In the instance of war trauma, you will most likely see an element of role reversal and role confusion. This must be considered when helping the family to collect themselves into an eventually newer, stronger family unit. I would also study the role of the extended family in helping this family to cope and heal. This would especially apply to families from a culture of collectivism rather than individuality. I think in summary, I would review the concepts of resilience, typical role changes and how these new roles function in families traumatized by war, and review the strengths approach in general. You can take the reviews from these concepts and consider how they uniquely apply to your target families. If you are also including victims of general violence, in order to apply this to families, I would look at the research on chronic community violence. There is a significant body of literature on risk factors and resilience in CCV. The continual stress of CCV is a good avenue to explore. I hope I did not stray too far from your research goals. Good Luck!