Showing how to weave assessment into all phases of therapy, this indispensable text and practitioner guide is reader friendly, straightforward, and practical. Specific strategies are provided for evaluating a wide range of clinical issues and concerns with adults, children and adolescents, families, and couples. The authors demonstrate ways to use interviewing and other techniques to understand both individual and relationship functioning, develop sound treatment plans, and monitor progress. Handy mnemonics help beginning family therapists remember what to include in assessments, and numerous case examples illustrate what the assessment principles look like in action with diverse clients. See also the authors' Essential Skills in Family Therapy, Third Edition: From the First Interview to Termination, which addresses all aspects of real-world clinical practice, and Clinician's Guide to Research Methods in Family Therapy.

Doug Sprenkle - Awarded the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) 2010 Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Research and Practice! Grounded in theory, research, and extensive clinical experience, this pragmatic book addresses critical questions of how change occurs in couple and family therapy and how to help clients achieve better results. The authors show that regardless of a clinician's orientation or favored techniques, there are particular therapist attributes, relationship variables, and other factors that make therapy specifically, therapy with couples and families more or less effective. The book explains these common factors in depth and provides hands-on guidance for capitalizing on them in clinical practice and training. User-friendly features include numerous case examples and a reproducible common factors checklist.

The field of family, child, and couple assessment continues to evolve and change since the first edition of this book appeared in 2004. Couple and Family Assessment, Third Edition, is a thoroughly revised and updated resource for anyone working with children, adolescents, couples, and families. It provides an in-depth description of an even larger number of clinically useful assessment tools and methods, including issue-specific tools, self-report inventories, standardized inventories, qualitative measures, and observational methods. Each chapter provides strategies for systematically utilizing these various assessment methods and measures with a wide range of family dynamics that influence couples and families. These include couples conflict, divorce, separation, mediation, premarital decisions, parenting conflicts, child abuse, family violence, custody evaluation, and child and adolescent conditions, i.e., depression, anxiety, conduct disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, Asperger’s syndrome, and learning disorders that can significantly influence family dynamics. This third edition features the latest, most common and important assessment tools and strategies for addressing problematic clinical issues related to working with families, couples, and children. Chapters 3 through 11 include matrices that summarize pertinent information on all instruments reviewed, allowing readers to instantly compare more than 130 assessment devices. Finally, the book provides extensive clinical case material that illustrates the use of these various assessment tools and strategies in a wide array of clinical situations. Couple and Family Assessment, Third Edition, will be useful to both trainees and practitioners as a ready reference on assessment measures and strategies for working with families, couples, and children.

A research methods text with a unique focus on evidence-based practice with couples and families, this book bridges the divide between research and clinical work. The text offers comprehensive, user-friendly coverage of measurement and design issues and basic qualitative and quantitative methods. Illustrating research concepts with clinically relevant examples and sample studies, it teaches clear steps for evaluating different types of studies and identifying common threats to validity. Of special value to therapists, it provides a systematic framework for using research to guide the selection and evaluation of interventions that meet the needs of particular clients. Pedagogical features: *End-of-chapter "Applications" sections showing how to evaluate specific methods. *Appendices with quick-reference guides and recommended resources. *Instructive glossary. See also the authors' Essential Skills in Family Therapy, Third Edition: From the First Interview to Termination, which addresses all aspects of real-world clinical practice, and Essential Assessment Skills for Couple and Family Therapists, which shows how to weave assessment into all phases of therapy.

Techniques for the Couple Therapist features many of the most prominent psychotherapists today, presenting their most effective couple therapy interventions. This book provides clinicians with a user-friendly quick reference with an array of techniques that can be quickly read and immediately used in session. The book includes over 50 chapters by experts in the field on the fundamental principles and techniques for effective couple therapy. Many of the techniques focus on common couple therapy processes such as enactments, communication, and reframing. Others focus on specific presenting problems, such as trauma, sexual issues, infidelity, intimate partner violence, and high conflict. Students, beginning therapists, and seasoned clinicians will find this pragmatic resource invaluable in their work with couples.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. Treatment Planning. 2. Structural Family Therapy. 3. Strategic Therapy. 4. Milan Systemic Approach. 5. MRI Approach. 6. Satir's Communication Approach. 7. Symbolic-Experiential Family Therapy. 8. Intergenerational Family Therapy. 9. Cognitive-Behavioral Family Therapy. 10. Solution-Focused Therapy. 11. Narrative Therapy. 12. Collaborative Therapies. Internet and Video Resources. Index.

Tests and Assessments in Counseling provides students with current information on assessment tools and techniques through detailed case scenarios and vignettes. Going beyond basic information about a multitude of assessments, the authors focus on the use of instruments in individual cases to allow readers to more fully grasp the integral relationship between tests and assessment data and the counseling process. Chapters guide students through choosing the most effective assessment tool, successfully administering the assessment, and making meaningful and useful results of the data with the client. Test questions are also included at the end of each chapter.