Clinical Practice with Families: Supporting Creativity and Competence

by Rothery; Michael

• ISBN13: 9780789010841
• ISBN10: 0789010844
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Encourage creative change in troubled families! Clinical Practice with Families: Supporting Creativity and Competence presents the most important and useful contemporary ideas in family therapy from many diverse traditions. By organizing eclectic concepts within one basic, powerful framework, it makes these ideas more accessible and effective in practice. Instead of exploring these ideas in the abstract, Clinical Practice with Families illustrates them with in-depth case examples that include detailed studies of the client family's history and traditions, extensive analyses of the family system, and actual dialogue from sessions, along with the therapist's comments on shifting alliances and other unspoken occurrences. No other technique could better demonstrate the practical integration of therapeutic skills and concepts to meet the clients'needs. Clinical Practice with Families offers insight and ideas for practicing family therapists in such essential areas as: negotiating flexible, appropriate boundaries between family members and between yourself and your clients constructing ecomaps of a client's support systems and stressors identifying four kinds of supports helping the client reinterpret family traditions enabling clients to break the pattern of old narratives encouraging clients to set realistic, achievable goals Clinical Practice with Families offers a powerful set of techniques and ideas in a clear, understandable framework. Illustrated with helpful charts and figures, it offers senior students and practicing family therapists an opportunity to take a structured approach to contemporary theory and understand its implications for practice.

Author Biography

Michael Rothery, PhD, MSW, is a Professor on the faculty of social work at the University of Calgary in Western Canada George Enns, MSW, is coordinator of the Youth and Family Team for a district mental health service, and was honored, in 1987, to receive a Distinguished Service Award from his provincial government's Mental Health Services Branch

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Dorothy S. Becvar
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction: Creativity and Frameworks	1	(1)
Our Purpose	1	(1)
Clinical Theory and the Ecological Perspective	2	(3)
Clinical Theory: An Embarrassment of Riches	5	(1)
Case Example: The Doyles	6	(1)
Creativity	7	(2)
Frameworks	9	(12)
PART I ESSENTIAL THEMES---A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING
Boundaries	21	(30)
The Nature of Boundaries	22	(8)
Qualities and Functions of Boundaries	30	(7)
The Rhythm of Contact and Withdrawal	37	(4)
A Boundary Dynamic	41	(4)
The Boundary Negotiation Process	45	(1)
Boundaries and Identity	46	(4)
Boundaries in Context	50	(1)
Traditions	51	(22)
Traditions Defined	52	(1)
Sources of Traditions	53	(3)
The Advantages of the Concept	56	(1)
Our Relationship to Traditions	57	(13)
Rebecca and Daniel's Crisis Revisited	70	(3)
Development of Individuals in Families: Themes and Variations	73	(50)
The Advantages of a Cevelopmental View	74	(1)
A Perspective on Development	75	(3)
The New Couple	78	(4)
Boundaries with the Couple's Extended Family and Other Systems	82	(6)
Bearing and Caring for Children	88	(6)
Caring for Adolescents	94	(8)
Launching the Young Adult	102	(6)
Attachment and Disengagement in Later Life	108	(5)
Further Variations	113	(5)
The Therapist's Developmental Issues	118	(5)
PART II FACILITATING CHANGE
Understanding Change	123	(24)
Theories of Explanation and Theories of Change	123	(1)
Relationship As a Precondition for Change	124	(3)
Boundaries and the Helping Relationship	127	(2)
Traditions and the Helping Relationship	129	(6)
Change and the Boundary Dynamic	135	(2)
Summary: Generalizations About Change	137	(2)
Example: Ideas About Change in Action	139	(6)
Final Note: Technique and Creativity	145	(2)
Setting Goals, Discovering Solutions	147	(18)
Defining Problems and Discovering Solutions	148	(8)
Traditions and the Search for Solutions	156	(5)
Integrating Different Agendas	161	(1)
Goals and Stages in the Process of Change	162	(3)
Clarifying Boundaries: Boundaries As a Framework for Theraphy	165	(46)
Clarifying Boundaries: A New Example	167	(1)
The Generational Boundary	168	(18)
Clarifying Boundaries: An Extended Example	186	(25)
Helping Vulnerable Families	211	(20)
The Concept of Vulnerability	211	(4)
Vulnerability and Clinical Intervention	215	(3)
Vulnerability and Boundaries	218	(1)
Vulnerability and Traditions	219	(1)
Case Example: The McDougalls	220	(2)
Expanding Our Understanding: The Ecomap A Focus on Strenghts	222	(1)
A Focus on Strengths	222	(4)
Implications for Service	226	(5)
Epilogue: Future Creative Challenges	231	(8)
References	239	(8)
Index	247