摘要:

This essay proposes that family therapy is currently undergoing a paradigm shift as a result of the ascendance of an epistemological focus absent in the foundational works that gave rise to the field's dominant clinical approaches. While systemic metaphors for the family are based on mechanistic, biological, and linguistic models primarily concerned with how the world is (ontology), postmodernism's social constructionist leanings give primacy to meaning, interpretation, and the inter‐subjectivity of knowledge (epistemology). Thus, the metaphor of the family as a system is gradually being subsumed by a metaphor that construes families as interpretive communities, or storying cultures. It is suggested that this largely implicit transformation be made explicit in order to explore more fully the clinical implications of the new epistemolog

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00001.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Synthesizing individual and family therapies can founder if the underlying epistemological assumptions concerning “what is self” are not taken into account. Most individual therapies assume self “really” exists as a relatively stable internal entity, the repository of residues of experience where traits, memories, et cetera are organized via internal schemas. Such a view tends to treat self as a thing, and implies that psychological problems are the result of internal deficits or conflicts; this can lead to difficulties in therapy. In contrast, ecosystemic views employ constructivist and contextualist approaches that are more fluid. However, by basing autopoetic self‐organization in language, ecosystemic epistemology still separates subject from object. Adopting a perspective in which self has no fixed, distinguishing characteristics can resolve many difficulties and create a dimensionless point where self and system, individual and family, therapist and client can meet without

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00021.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The aim of this article is to make attachment research findings available in a form that family therapists can use. In attachment theory, parents are conceptualized as providing a secure base from which a child can explore. Family therapists, however, need a systemic concept that goes beyond the parent/child dyad. The concept of a secure family base is proposed, in which a network of care is made available for all family members of whatever age so that all family members feel secure enough to explore, in the knowledge that support is available if needed. Factors that contribute to the security or insecurity of the family base are outlined. The overall aim of therapy is to establish a secure family base from which the family can explore new solutions to family problems both during and after therapy. The role of the therapist is to help to resolve conflicts that threaten relationships, and to explore relevant belief systems that may be contributing to a sense of insecurity. The conceptual framework presented allows for an integration of family therapy techniques and ideas into a coherent whole. A new school of family therapy is not proposed.

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00045.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Families identified as neglectful pose a special challenge to family therapists and other practitioners, not only because they are usually involuntary clients but also because of the relative weakness of their internal process, which often becomes “diluted” into the system of providers. Current social services practices that exacerbate the dilution of family process are hard to eradicate because they are rooted in a culture that promotes the transfer of functions from families to social agencies; families, immersed in the same culture, often collude with the agencies in their own dilution. The treatment of neglect in families calls for the nurturance of the family's process and the disruption of the complementary pattern between family and regulatory agenc

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00059.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Family researchers have virtually ignored the families of clergy as a population of interest. Their unique social ecology, however, can offer a profitable case study in family stress. The genesis of Boss's (1977, 1987) boundary ambiguity construct will be reviewed and critiqued. Bronfenbrenner's (1979) approach will then be applied to the boundary problems of clergy families. It is argued that an ecological analysis of boundary ambiguity in clergy families will lead to a higher‐order understanding of the construct itsel

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00075.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Using a grounded theory methodology in exploratory interviews with noncaregiving and caregiving adult children, differences were found in their experience of burden, their focus, their suffering, and their sense of responsibility. Childhood reputations appeared to follow siblings into adulthood, and they describe finding their adult positions in the family clearly circumscribed and entrenched because of family legacy. Children who were in some way different and excused from family responsibilities in childhood because they were, for example, “spoiled,” a “problem child,” the “intellectual,” or “flaky,” appeared to be unencumbered as adults when faced with caregiving responsibilities for a relative with Alzheimer's disease. Although these uninvolved and unencumbered children seemed to take less caregiving responsibility, they describe their loss and suffering in relation to a loss of identity and selfhood, whereas other children describe their burden and the overwhelming pulls and demands made on them. These preliminary findings suggest the need for systematic scientific inquiry about families, including multiple relatives, family history, impact of family‐of‐origin legacy, family reputations, and family n

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00087.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Little research has examined the influence of social cognition on communicative behaviors that spouses exhibit in conversational interactions. The present study examined the associations between interpersonal cognitive complexity and three marital communication skills: communication effectiveness (generating messages that have the desired outcome), predictive accuracy (anticipating accurately the effects of a message on a receiver), and perceptual accuracy (correctly inferring the intent of a message source). The study also evaluated whether marital distress moderated associations between cognitive complexity and communication skills. Participants (60 couples) discussed a problem from their own marriage and a vignette from the Inventory of Marital Conflicts (Olson&Ryder, 1970) using the communication box. Cognitive complexity was moderately associated with perceptual accuracy, weakly associated with communication effectiveness, and not associated with predictive accuracy. Subsidiary analyses revealed that associations between cognitive complexity and the communication skills were generally stronger in the sub‐sample of distressed couples than in the subsample of nondistressed couple

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00101.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This essay introduces the terms “nomothetic” and “idiographic” to characterize the current debate about whether the field of family therapy should accumulate and apply knowledge about patterns of adjustment that hold across different families, or whether the field should consider each family as utterly unique, and should tailor interventions solely on the basis of these unique qualities. Embedded in this debate are the arguments for and against quantitative research, disagreements about the value of clinical prediction and interobserver reliability, as well as the issue of whether therapists can rightfully claim to possess “expert knowledge.” The essay begins with the personal‐professional anecdote that stimulated me to explore this debate in greater depth. It continues with a brief discussion of the historical context of this debate, particularly noting the parallels between the methodological issues in personality research and those facing family therapy. The nomothetic‐idiographic debate in family therapy theory, research, and practice is then described. The essay ends with the suggestion that family therapy view nomothetic and idiographic thinking as complementary, and that the field strive to develop an integrated, “idiothetic” approach to family therapy re

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00113.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00123.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0014-7370    

DOI:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1995.00vii.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY