Eclectic, readable, and up-to-date, this text highlights the strengths and limitations of the main contemporary schools of family therapy. The second edition is thoroughly revised, with new chapters on basic concepts in family therapy, how to establish treatment goals, and strategic and developed therapies as well as fuller coverage on healthy families and optimal family functioning, the different schools of family therapy, supervision and consultation, and how to deal with treatment interruptions.

The challenge facing the authors of texts that address the multiplicity and complexity of problems that may afflict families can be intimidating. Philip Barker has addressed this challenge head-on in each of the editions of this book. This task has been greatly facilitated by the contributions of the new co-author, Jeff Chang, and in this edition provides a clear, easily read and readily understandable introduction to family therapy. Much has happened in the field of family therapy since the fifth edition of Basic Family Therapy was published in 2007. New developments covered in this book include: Emotionally Focused Therapy The Gottman approach to couples therapy Mindfulness and psychotherapy The common factors approach to psychotherapy and to family therapy The increased emphasis on empirically supported treatments High-conflict post-divorce parenting Basic Family Therapy will be of value to readers new to family therapy and to those in the early stages of training.

First published in 1993. should be used as opposed to focusing on the techniques-with-theories­attached approach of other books in the same genre. The first volume in the Basic Principles Into Practice Series, this book provides an easy to under­stand, basic approach that eschews the latest treatment trends and buzzwords in family therapy to focus on a new way of thinking about using family relation­ships in treating behavioral disorders. Throughout, Dr. Griffin stresses the importance of learning to view and treat the family as a whole, often requiring a difficult conceptual shift in one's view of aberrant behavior. Readers will be rewarded with a core, rudimentary understanding of family therapy that will serve them well regardless of which family therapy models they later use in practice.

Gain confidence and creativity in your family therapy interventions with new, up-to-date research! Basic Concepts in Family Therapy: An Introductory Text, Second Edition, presents twenty-two basic psychological concepts that therapists may use to understand clients and provide successful services to them. Each chapter focuses on a single concept using material from family therapy literature, basic psychological and clinical research studies, and cross-cultural research studies. Basic Concepts in Family Therapy is particularly useful to therapists working in a family context with child- or adolescent-referred problems, and for students and clinicians treating the problems they see every day in their community. The book builds on the strengths of the first edition, incorporating ideas and articles that have become worthy of investigating since 1990 into the original text. This new edition also introduces five new chapters on resiliency and poverty, adoption, chronic illness, spirituality and religion, and parenting strategies. The new chapters make the book far more relevant for students and clinicians try ing to use family theory and technique in response to the problems they see in their communities. Basic Concepts in Family Therapy will assist you in offering clients better services by providing a deeper understanding of the contemporary family in its various forms, the psychological bonds that shape all families, and the developmental stages of the family life cycle. This exploration of how family demography, stages and life cycles affect family functions is a solid foundation from which all of the therapeutic concepts in this book can be explored. Some of the facets of family therapy you will explore in Basic Concepts in Family Therapy are: the importance of spirituality and religion in family therapy generational boundaries, closeness, and role behaviors managing a family's emotions defining problems and generating and evaluating possible solutions teaching children specific attitudes, values, social skills, and norms transracial adoptions and normative processes and developmental issues of adoptive parents strategies for reducing conflict . . . and much more! Basic Concepts in Family Therapy will help to broaden your understanding of the ways families function in general. You can use the effective concepts explored in this text to make a thorough assessment of the impact of a disorder on a child and on the rest of his or her family, as well as how family dynamics might have shaped or exacerbated the problems. The concepts described in this text can be customized to clients’cultural values to avoid unnecessary resistance. As a new therapist, you will gain confidence in your assessments, and if you are already a seasoned professional, you will gain creativity in your interventions.

Hoffman provides a brilliant synthesis of family therapy. Starting with Gregory Bateson's seminal ideas on social fields, the book examines the key concepts of general systems theory. The author then explores the major schools of family therapy and such figures as Minuchin, Bowen, Whitaker, Haley, Erickson, and Ackerman, as well as the revolutionary work of Selvini Palazzoli.

Written for the beginning clinician, this brief introduction to family therapy provides a general perspective on systems and social construction, focusing on engagement, assessment, and change. Specific chapters discuss the first interview, setting boundaries, diagnosis and systems models, identifying family patterns, the resistance to change, techniques for promoting change, and termination. The emphasis throughout is on practical strategies rather than theory. Worden teaches at Fairfield University. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.