This text and professional resource offers an alternative approach to thinking about and working with “difficult” families. From a nonpathologizing stance, William C. Madsen demonstrates creative ways to help family members shift their relationship to longstanding problems; envision desired lives; and develop more proactive coping strategies. Anyone working with families in crisis, especially in settings where time and resources are scarce, will gain valuable insights and tools from this book.

Resistant, difficult, dysfunctional--these and other labels are often applied to families who have not been well served by traditional mental health, social service, and medical systems. This volume sets forth an alternative approach to thinking about and working with multi-stressed families. Working from the conviction that clients are more than the difficulties in their lives, seasoned practitioner William Madsen invites therapists to move away from trying to identify and correct old problems. Instead, he outlines a detailed framework for collaborating with family members to envision desired futures and develop new lives. Anyone working with families in crisis, especially in settings where time and resources are scarce, will gain valuable insights and tools from this book. Highlighting the importance of the therapist's relational stance, the book discusses how helpers can position themselves as appreciative allies in clients' lives. Guidelines are provided for conducting nonpathologizing assessments that promote attention to families' resources and abilities as well as their challenges. Ways to engage reluctant clients in treatment are demonstrated, with special attention to those families who may minimize difficulties or insist that one particular family member needs to be "fixed." Illustated with numerous case examples and client-therapist dialogues, chapters show how to implement interventions that elicit themes of competence, connection, hope, and vision. Therapists learn concepts and strategies to help clients shift their relationship to the problems in their lives; take apart the old stories that have organized family life; and build alternative narratives that open new possibilities for growth and change. Other topics covered include helping clients develop communities of support; successfully collaborating with other helping professionals; and revisioning agency structures, procedures, and paperwork. Offering concrete guidance for therapists facing challenging clinical situations, the book facilitates a strengths-based focus without romanticizing families or minimizing their difficulties. It is an invaluable resource for therapists, counselors, and supervisors, particularly those working in outpatient clinics, community agencies, and home-based family preservation programs. In addition, graduate-level students of family therapy, social work, and clinical and counseling psychology will find it a clear and informative text.

Aimed primarily at clinicians who are required to find ways to interrupt patterns of destructive behaviour in couples and families, this text provides a compilation of multi-disciplinary techniques and flexible strategies to accomplish 14 major therapeutic tasks.

"Resistant, difficult, dysfunctional - these and other labels are often applied to families who have not been well served by traditional mental health, social service, and medical systems. This volume sets forth an alternative approach to thinking about and working with multi-stressed families. Working from the conviction that clients are more than the difficulties in their lives, seasoned practitioner William Madsen invites therapists to move away from trying to identify and correct old problems. Instead, he outlines a detailed framework for collaborating with family members to envision desired futures and develop new lives. Anyone working with families in crisis, especially in settings where time and resources are scarce, will gain valuable insights and tools from this book."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

An acclaimed, influential work now available in paper for the first time, this bestselling book applies the concepts of systemic family therapy to the emotional life of congregations. Edwin H. Friedman shows how the same understanding of family process that can aid clergy in their pastoral role also has important ramifications for negotiating congregational dynamics and functioning as an effective leader. Clergy from diverse denominations, as well as family therapists and counselors, have found that this book directly addresses the dilemmas and crises they encounter daily. It is widely used as a text in courses on pastoral care, leadership, and family systems.

The authors describe their success with narrative therapy, a lighter, playful approach to the serious problems encountered in child and family therapy. They provide case vignettes in the first two sections which show how children who might have been labeled belligerent, hyperactive, anxious, or out of touch with reality are found to be capable of taming their tempers, controlling frustration, and using their imaginations to the fullest. They address the helpful role of family members, as well. The third section of the text offers five extended case stories. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An interdisciplinary framework for sustainable helping through cross-system collaboration This hands-on resource provides clear, practical guidance for supportive service professionals working in a home-based environment. Drawing on best practices from a range of disciplines, this book provides a clear map for dealing with the complex and often ambiguous situations that arise with individuals and families, with applications extending to supervision and organizational change. Readers gain the advice and insight of real-world frontline helpers, as well as those who receive care, highlighting new ways to approach the work and re-think previous conceptualizations of problems and strengths. Helping efforts are organized around a shared, forward-thinking vision that anticipates obstacles and draws on existing and potential supports in developing a collaborative plan of action. The book begins with stories that illustrate core concepts and context, presenting a number of useful ideas that can reorient behavioral services while outlining a principle-based practice framework to help workers stay grounded and focused. Problems are addressed, and strength-based work is expanded into richer conversations about strengths in the context of intention and purpose, value and belief, hopes, dreams, and commitments. Topics include: Contextual guidance with helping maps Engaging people and re-thinking problems and strengths Dilemmas in home and community services Sustainable helping through collaboration and support A strong collaboration between natural networks, communities, and trained professionals across systems creates an effective helping endeavor. Ensuring sustainability may involve promoting systems change, and building institutional supports for specific supervisory, management, and organizational practices. Collaborative Helping provides a framework for organizing these efforts into a coherent whole, serving the needs of supportive services workers across sectors.

In this unique book, noted family therapists Jeffrey L. Zimmerman and Victoria C. Dickerson explore how clients' problems are defined by personal and cultural narratives, and ways the therapist can assist clients in co-constructing and reauthoring narratives to fit their preferences. The authors share their therapeutic vision through a series of stories, fictionalized discussions, and minidramas, in which problems have a voice. Written in an engaging and personal style, the book challenges many dominant ideas in psychotherapy, inviting the reader to enter a world in which she or he can experience a radically different view of problems, people, and therapy. A wealth of stories told from the clients' point of view illustrate the creative ways they begin to deal with problems: Individuals escape them, couples take their relationships back from problems, kids dump their problems, and teenagers work with their parents to fight their problems. Training and supervision from the perspective of students are also discussed. As entertaining as it is informative, this book will be welcomed by family therapists both novice and experienced, from a range of orientations. Offering a creative and accessible approach to clinical work, it also serves as a supplementary text in courses on family and narrative therapy.

"What a gift to education! By practicing the ideas in this book, school counselors everywhere can help create new descriptions and stories that will transform the academic lives and behaviors of their students." —Linda Metcalf, Author Counseling Toward Solutions and Solution–Focused School Counseling Promote students′ respect for themselves and others through narrative interventions! Narrative counseling is based on the premise that stories, rather than hard-nosed realities, shape our lives. By changing the stories that negatively label and define students, we help them open up new avenues and opportunities. In this second edition of their best-selling book, John Winslade and Gerald Monk present even more case studies, guidance, and examples of counseling practice to help students narrate stories that "redescribe" who they are and can be. Mindful that today′s busy counselors need effective and brief techniques, the authors make plain the steps with which counselors can externalize problems and draw out student self-knowledge to inform new ways of identifying and behaving. Updated throughout, this new edition offers: An exploration of ethically sound accountability practices Potential obstacles and suggestions for overcoming them Guidance to help students set goals Applications of narrative ideas to restorative justice An expanded section on group work, specifically focusing on anger management and grief counseling Grounded in a deep respect for students, this book′s principles and practices will enable students to choose for themselves the new reputations by which they′ll be known.

Combining both the theory and practice of strengths-based therapy, Elsie Jones-Smith introduces current and future practitioners to the modern approach of practice—presenting a model for treatment as well as demonstrations in clinical practice across a variety of settings. This highly effective form of therapy supports the idea that clients know best about what has worked and has not worked in their lives, helps them discover positive and effective solutions through their own experiences, and allows therapists to engage their clients in their own therapy. Drawing from cutting-edge research in neuroscience, positive emotions, empowerment, and change, Strengths-Based Therapy helps readers understand how to get their clients engaged as active participants in treatment.