Inside Family Therapy

Description

Preface

1 Disturbing the Peace

“Can You Help Us?”

Looking for Leverage

Dialogue: Setting the System in Motion

It Must Be a Marital Problem

Linear versus Circular Causality

2 The Making of a Family Therapist

Behind the One-Way Mirror

3 Love’s Young Dream

“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine”

Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

“I Do”

4 The Progress of Love

“Why Are You so Mean to Me?”

Idealization

Accommodation

Boundaries

How to Succeed as a Couple by Really Trying

5 In-Laws

“Alone at Last”

Invaders from Another Planet

Accommodation and Boundary-Making with the In-Laws

Invisable Loyalties

Past Tense and Imperfect Future

6 The Depressed Young Mother

The Impossible Job

The Family Life Cycle

2 + 1 = 2

Heather’s Birth

The Young and the Restless

Renegotiating Boundaries with Grandparents

Reciprocity

Bitter Fruit

7 Why Can’t Jason Behave?

Fix my Child without Disturbing Me

Family Rules

Family Structure

The Strucural Model

Blueprint for a Healthy Family

Uncovering the Structure in a Family

Building Children’s Self-Esteem

8 The Overinvolved Mother and Peripheral Father

The need to Restructure the Family

Shared Parenting

The Best of Intentions

Pursuers and Distancers

Self-Defeating Cycles

9 Family Feud

Sibling Rivalry

Enmeshment

Disengagement

Brotherhood and Sisterhood

10 Loss of Innocence

To Tell or Not to Tell, That Is the Question

All Hell Breaks Loose

“Why, Why, Why?”

Moving On

11 Divorce, Remarriage, and Stepparenting

Families in Transition

Uncoupling

Reorganizing

Blending

12 Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Rebellious Teenager

That Awful, Awkward Age

“How Worried Should I Be about My Teenager?”

The Terrible Teens

13 The Salazars’ Family Therapy

Shifting Boundaries

All Together Again, and Out

14 Letting Go

“It’s the End of Our Family”

The Long Good-Bye

Boomerang Kids

“Under Certain Conditions”

Index

This unique casebook follows a family therapist’s narrative diary as he documents the process of working with the Salazars as they explore each stage of their relationship – from courtship through the departure of the children from home. It provides an in-depth personal account of the process of therapy from the counselor’s perspective, as well as a rich, detailed study of a family from courtship through the departure of the children from the home. Each major stage of the family life cycle is presented in a separate chapter.   Students of family therapy can use this book in conjunction with their textbooks can be used to accompany any family therapy text, including Nichols/Schwartz’s Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods, 8/e and Nichols Essentials of Family Therapy 4/e , to provide a more in-depth and personal view of how to conduct themselves as therapists. The book includes discussions of the effects of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation on individuals and families. It also provides information about the dynamics of relationships that could be applied by the reader to his or her own life, whether that person is a professional therapist, a student, or a member of the general public.

• Every chapter has several new paragraphs on how to conduct therapy at various stages of the life cycle.
• New statistics about drug abuse and sexual behavior of adolescents.

Follow a family therapist’s narrative diary as he documents the process of working with the Salazars, as they explore each stage of their relationship-from courtship through the departure of the children from the home.

This unique casebook provides an in-depth, personal account from the counselor’s perspective, while also looking at the personal viewpoints of family members. Each major stage of the family life is presented in a separate chapter and the book includes discussions of the effects of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation on individuals and families.

 

What Reviewers Are Saying:

“Strengths include presentation of therapy scenarios; focus on one family going through the therapy to demonstrate the stages of therapy and the stages of family life; real life experiences of the Salazar family members (students get inducted into this and usually ‘read ahead’ of what is assigned, something not normally done!).”

William Quinn, Clemson University

 

“The Inside Family Therapy book is perfect.  What is so very impressive about the content and the writing style is how Mike Nichols weaves and threads ways of thinking as he sits with this family, along with specific skills he utilizes in his work with them.  It allows students to see and experience what is going on within Nichols and how that is played out in what he says and does with the family.  This is not an easy thing to do with the written word (except in novels) but he does it so very well.  It also leads to much greater self awareness on the part of the students. 

Robert Jackson,  University of Iowa

• An in-depth and personal view of family therapy both from the therapist’s and the family members’ perspectives.

• Each chapter is devoted to a different stage of family development throughout the family life cycle.

• A companion casebook for any textbook of family therapy.  
• Includes discussions of gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference, and their effects on individuals and relationships.

Follow a family therapist’s narrative diary as he documents the process of working with the Salazars, as they explore each stage of their relationship-from courtship through the departure of the children from the home.

This unique casebook provides an in-depth, personal account from the counselor’s perspective, while also looking at the personal viewpoints of family members. Each major stage of the family life is presented in a separate chapter and the book includes discussions of the effects of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation on individuals and families.