Women, Feminism and Family Therapy encourages sensitivity to feminist perspectives and challenges many traditional notions held by therapists, clients, and society. One of the few guides that takes into account feminist ideals and the changing status of women in society, this provocative new book explores a feminist approach to theory, clinical applications, training, and supervision in family therapy. Topics in this exciting and though-provoking book include women in alcoholic families, women and abuse in the family context, lesbian daughters and mothers, and women and eating disorders. Editor Lois Braverman and the other expert contributors are practicing psychotherapists who have struggled with the problems of integrating a feminist perspective with the practice of family therapy. Their discussions--both theoretical and practical in scope--provide professionals with actual treament interventions, as well as a frank discussion of theoretical dilemmas.

Focusing on the practical application of feminist theory to clinical experience, Introduction to Feminist Therapy provides guidelines to help therapists master social action and empowerment techniques, feminist diagnostic and assessment strategies, and gender-role and power analyses to foster individual and social change. This guide is ideal for graduate students enrolled in a techniques of counseling course and practitioners who wish to incorporate feminist therapy into their current approach, including how to apply feminist therapy to both women and men and how to deal with the gender issues of both sexes. Client/Therapist dialogues provide readers with examples of how each technique actually works in a therapeutic session. The text also provides case studies, coverage of ethical issues, and feminist assessment guidelines that show readers how to conduct a feminist assessment with and without using the DSM-IV-TR.

"Feminist therapy came into existence toward the end of the 1960s. Feminist practice is psychology derived from the realities that lie outside, beneath, and at variance from the visions of the dominant patriarchal mainstream. It is an integrative and competency-based paradigm that perceives human beings as responsive to the problems of their lives, capable of solving those problems, and desirous of change. It is also a politically informed model that observes human experience within the framework of societal and cultural realities and through the dynamics of power informing those realities. This book represents an attempt to synthesize feminist therapy's heritage and roots, theory, and modes of practice as they stand in the early 21st century. The model of feminist therapy described in this book is strongly influenced by multicultural and global feminism and by the politics of the social justice movements of feminism, multi-culturalism, and other similar movements working to transform society. Feminist therapy and feminist therapists face the next eight decades of the 21st century wondering how transformations of our understandings of sex and gender, of power and relationships, and of the social and political context of therapy will transform our practice. As a model for psychotherapy, feminist therapy continues to offer the concept that psychotherapy can, and should, be liberatory and that liberation is not simply a freedom from distress but a move toward the power of being able to know and name one's experiences of oppression as well as those of joy."--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Since the beginning of the concepts of family therapy, mental health professionals have known that the family -- the system -- is a powerful source of support for change or a powerful force for resistance to change. Some professionals work with individuals, some with families and some with groups. However, all work with the context of the systems -- family, group, community, country, etc. Students, especially beginning students, are overwhelmed and confused at the variety of approaches to working with clients. Many programs introduce students to individual as well as systems concepts in the course of training. Students need assistance in learning this variety of theories. They need to be able to compare and contrast theories and techniques to determine when and where to utilise the best skills in order to facilitate client change. Dr. Karin Jordan has compiled a comprehensive text that enables the students to discover each theory as it is presented in its purist form. The text is accessible yet the content provides comprehensive knowledge of each theory. Dr. Jordan has brought together the master educators and clinicians in our fields to write about their particular expertise.

This new Handbook of Family Therapy is the culmination of a decade of achievements within the field of family and couples therapy, emerging from and celebrating the dynamic evolution of marriage and family theory, practice, and research. The editors have unified the efforts of the profession's major players in bringing the most up-to-date and innovative information to the forefront of both educational and practice settings. They review the major theoretical approaches and break new ground by identifying and describing the current era of evidence-based models and contemporary areas of application. The Handbook of Family Therapy is a comprehensive, progressive, and skillful presentation of the science and practice of family and couples therapy, and a valuable resource for practitioners and students alike.

Although feminist family therapy has been gaining recognition and followers in recent years, little is known about the variety of experiences, philosophies, and private learnings of feminist practitioners. Reflections on Feminist Family Therapy Training utilizes first-person accounts, theory, and commentary to explore the challenges feminist teachers and practitioners face and the aspects of their practice that are seldom considered. Readers of Reflections on Feminist Family Therapy Training acquire effective teaching strategies and a sensitivity to the intersection of cultural diversity and feminism. Students are introduced to several contextual factors that shape personal and professional experiences, as well as techniques that address predictable patterns of behavior and attitudes toward feminist family therapy in a variety of settings. The book presents innovative ideas and strategies from experienced trainers for tolerating, working with, and resolving gaps between theory and practice and for confronting hostility or tension within specific institutional contexts. Aimed at building bridges between teachers and practitioners of family therapy from a feminist perspective, Reflections on Feminist Family Therapy Training explores and helps you answer the following questions: What similarities and differences exist between American and European feminist family therapists? What special challenges does the feminist therapist face in a conventional training institute? Does a feminist or liberal context attend adequately to the needs of the multicultural student body? How does a trainer’s national standing or tenure status promote or harm her freedom to practice openly in a specifically feminist way? What new directions and opportunities exist for feminist family therapists? Reflections on Feminist Family Therapy Training looks at the difficulties women practitioners face in convincing family therapy to recognize the significance of gender as a variable factor. In doing so, it offers specific classroom applications and general approaches to the feminist task of getting unheard and repressed voices acknowledged. Finally, the book outlines future directions for expanding and improving feminist-informed training and for giving it a more central and integrated position in the curricula.

While there are many volumes that survey the field of family therapy, Family Therapy Sourcebook provides something different: a roadmap to classic and state-of-the-art work on foundational issues in theory, research, and practice. More than a textbook or a summary of primary sources, this volume is a comprehensive guide to original source materials for the student or teacher of family therapy. Covering the traditional family therapies and more, each chapter presents a selective annotated bibliography, highlights key concepts and clinical techniques, discusses research issues, and proposes creative teaching strategies. Describing helpful assignments and experiential learning exercises for educators, the authors share valuable expertise gained from years of teaching.

Family Therapy Techniques briefly reviews the basic theories of marriage and family therapy. It then goes into treatment models designed to facilitate the tailoring of therapy to specific populations and the integration of techniques from what often seems like disparate theories. Based on the assumption that no single approach is the definitive approach for every situation, the book leads students through multiple perspectives. In teaching students to integrate and tailor techniques, this book asks them to take functional methods and approaches from a variety of theoretical approaches, without attempting to reiterate the theoretical issues and research covered in theories courses.

This volume reflects the achievements in developing new concepts and models of family therapy and new approaches to special clinical issues and problems during the 1980s. Chapters by experts such as Boszormenyi-Nagy, Everett, Guttman, Lankton, Liddle, McGoldrick, Madanes, and Walsh offer insight into a variety of areas including systems theory, cybernetics, and epistemology; contextual therapy; Ericksonian therapy; strategic family therapy; treating divorce in family therapy practice; ethnicity and family therapy; and training and supervision in family therapy.

Origins We call this book on theoretical orientations and methodological strategies in family studies a sourcebook because it details the social and personal roots (i.e., sources) from which these orientations and strategies flow. Thus, an appropriate way to preface this book is to talk first of its roots, its beginnings. In the mid 1980s there emerged in some quarters the sense that it was time for family studies to take stock of itself. A goal was thus set to write a book that, like Janus, would face both backward and forward a book that would give readers both a perspec tive on the past and a map for the future. There were precedents for such a project: The Handbook of Marriage and the Family edited by Harold Christensen and published in 1964; the two Contemporary Theories about theFamily volumes edited by Wesley Burr, Reuben Hill, F. Ivan Nye, and Ira Reiss, published in 1979; and the Handbook of Marriage and the Family edited by Marvin Sussman and Suzanne Steinmetz, then in production.