Author Description

Offering a comprehensive survey of marriage and family therapy, this book approaches the topic from a systems perspective. This systemic-cybernetic framework provides a theoretical map that helps readers understand people in the context of their environment. Current developments, evolving models, and ongoing debates are explored, and family and developmental theories are integrated into a dynamic process model for viewing and understanding family interactions and relationships. The book presents psychodynamic, experiential, structural, communications, strategic, and behavioral approaches to understanding family relationships, and covers a broad spectrum of therapeutic modalities, including individual, couple, group family, couples group, multiple family, networking, and symptom-focused. It also shows how family therapy has evolved in the last 50 years.This revision includes an up-to-date discussion of postmodernism in Chapter 4; an expanded discussion of family process, development, and context in Chapter 6; questions and reflections from a second-order cybernetics/postmodernist perspective in Chapters 7-13; and the most recent research findings and discussions in Chapter 15. Market: For social workers, counselors, and others interested in a systemic view of family therapy.