Argues that family therapy, while highlighting the significance of family functioning for individual experience, has failed to respond to the critical analyses of the family that have recently been offered by the women's movement. Consequently, it cannot investigate the possibility that "dysfunction" in families is actually socially…

Overviews a counseling approach designed to help parents shift from focusing on negative aspects of their lives and children to a more positive focus. Discusses the counseling theory system which is based on social learning theory. Presents counseling strategies and describes a typical counseling series using this approach. (RC)

Describes adolescents who attempted suicide. Adolescent suicide attempts presented are most significantly related to long-term family dysfunction. Some vegetative depressive symptoms are noted in a majority of patients. Implications are drawn for strengthening the mental health practitioner's role in detecting and preventing adolescent suicide.…

Describes a three-year training program in family violence that was established at Children's Hospital Medical Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. The program's goals were to link research and clinical practice and to encourage the interchange of perspectives between hospital based practitioners and university based behavioral scientists. (Author/GC)

Systems and communications theories applied to the delicate task of matching children with families promise an objective method for understanding the complexities of family relationships. The author shows how one agency successfully incorporated sophisticated theoretical tools into a study process evaluating the stability of foster family…

Counselors working in isolated areas like Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula need special characteristics and the ability to relate to the community as a whole. Counselors must rely on personal resources and be familiar with individual and group counseling techniques to succeed, especially if they are the only counselor available. (JAC)

Focuses on alcoholism in the husband/father. Disturbed personality and decompensation hypotheses were not supported by the data. Suggests systems theory alone is inadequate to conceptualize the inconsistency of the alcoholic, and his impact on the family. Proposes a combination of systems theory and Hill's (1949) crisis theory. (Author)

Discusses the definition and incidence of incest, counseling needs of incest victims, and strategies for working with women who experienced incest in childhood or adolescence. Identifies techniques and resources for individual and group counseling. Suggests counselors expand their knowledge about incest in order to offer appropriate services.…

Presents a method of therapy for families with an acting-out adolescent or young adult. Aims at altering the underlying problem of immaturity. Outlines a four-phase process in working with the parents over an extended period of time. (Author/JAC)

Focuses upon the relationship between Holocaust experiences and postwar adaptational styles among survivors' families. Three general family types are associated with overall psychological responses: "families of fighters,""the numb family," and "those who made it." Some implications for psychiatric treatment and for…

Predicts that changing sociocultural patterns will affect services for Australian children in the 1980s. Among topics discussed are demographic changes: a decreased birth rate and an increased number of working mothers in fatherless families at the poverty level. Compensatory education programs and family policy development in Western societies…

Discusses ways a counselor can help children and family members deal with a parent's death. Children should be told the truth in a simple, sensitive manner and encouraged to share their feelings and emotions. (JAC)

Understanding and developing skills in working with families are important for school psychologists. By viewing a child's problems from a family systems framework, new interventions such as short-term family therapy can be employed. Training programs should include courses in family therapy. (JAC)

Reviews selected literature on childhood hyperactivity and suggestions for management of this behavior syndrome. Argues that little consideration has been given to the consequences for parents and siblings of having a hyperactive child present in the family setting. Little attention has been focused on the implementation of management techniques.…

The truncated nuclear family consists of a two-generation group in which conflict has produced a polarization of values. The single-parent family is at special risk. Go-between process enables the therapist to depolarize sharply conflicted values and reduce pathogenic relating. (Author)