A moderate common factors approach is proposed as a synthesis or middle path to integrate common and specific factors in evidence-based approaches to high-risk youth and families. The debate in family therapy between common and specific factors camps is reviewed and followed by suggestions from the literature for synthesis and creative flexibility…

Calls for a recognition of existential issues in family therapy. Notes the importance of "big questions" to families, reviews the roots of existential philosophy therapy, and offers an example of the usefulness of connecting existential thought to the family field by discussing differentiation/fusion from an existential perspective. (BH)

Presents an integration of object relations theory and family systems theory in the conceptualization of bulimia. Proposes that in bulimic families there are transgenerational developmental deficits and adaptations which determine the level and quality of intrapsychic experience within individuals and the interpersonal relationships and dynamic…

Comments on psychosomatic family concept. Reviews decline of psychosomatic models of illness that assume that arousal is the only or primary means by which psychosocial factors influence illness. Focuses on brittle diabetes, noting the potential for family theorists to develop more adequate models of poor self-care and medical crises as…

Reports series of studies investigating reliability and validity of the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD). Results indicated that the FAD has: (1) adequate test-retest reliability, (2) low correlations with social desirability, (3) moderate correlations with other self-report measures of family functioning, and (4) differentiates…

Describes a variable color-coding system which has been added to the standard family genogram in which characteristics or issues associated with a particular presenting problem or for a particular family are arbitrarily assigned a color. Presents advantages of color-coding, followed by clinical examples. (Author/ABL)

Describes a study to determine if the Areas of Change Questionnaire (AC) items represent commonly occurring problems seen by marital therapists and identified by Geiss and O'Leary (1981). Results suggest that AC Questionnaire, containing 13 of Geiss and O'Leary's 29 marital problem categories, is limited in the range of clinical marital problems…

Presents method for quickly and graphically clarifying relationship between life cycle events and the onset of problems in families. Describes how to laterally organize events in terms of points in time at which they occurred and explains structural version, expressed into formats, that elucidates interaction between nodal events and changes in…

Explores the reliability of the categories used to describe family structure in structural family therapy. Five clinicians independently rated three initial conjoint family interviews. Results are discussed in terms of their demonstration of the utility of the structural nonmenclature, some conceptual problems in the structural nomenclature, and…

Discusses psycholegal issues involved in intraspousal and interfamily law suits. Delineates six categories of lawsuits. Suggests that conflicts in families are already fairly extreme when adult children sue parents and that family lawsuits often make rifts irreparable. (Author/CM)

Explains the danger that arises when the person referring his or her family is a sibling of the index patient and, in many ways, the most competent and prestigious family member. Demonstrates how this pitfall can be turned into a springboard for therapeutic success. (BH)

Proposes a model for understanding child and adolescent achievement problems. Suggests four dimensions of a family's learning environment: (1) family communication deviances; (2) family structure; (3) family attributions; and (4) family achievement values. Offers metaphor of family as "primary classroom." (Author/ABL)

Identifies and describes specific patterns of interaction in families with obese adolescent daughters. (Author/BL)

Analyzes 13 models of family therapy according to their special emphases on the Family FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation) model's dimensions of inclusion, control, and intimacy. Final conceptual analysis of models indicated that four family therapy models emphasized inclusion as a primary focus, four emphasized control, and…

Examines the Marriage Contract Game which can improve the skills of distressed couples and refocus their attention away from their children and toward their own marriages. Subjects were four distressed couples. Results showed that game play improved couple's problem-solving and positive feeling statements in home discussions of problems. (BH)