The past quarter century has been a time of historic social and cultural upheaval, and nowhere is that more evident than in the changing face of the family. In an effort to keep pace with the many challenges that confront the modern family in all its varied new forms, this groundbreaking book offers a broad-ranging, carefully integrated review of contemporary trends in family therapy, research, and practice. In Treating the Changing Family, nearly twenty-five distinguished experts from across North America, including psychologists, marriage and family therapists, social workers, and others, reexamine the family and the many contemporary challenges to its function, and provide practical advice for therapists who treat troubled families.

Comprehensive in scope, Treating the Changing Family deals with the full array of non-normative events confronting today's family, including violence and abuse, addiction, long-term and chronic illness (with a special chapter on AIDS in the family), divorce, adoption, trauma, ethnicity, and others. It explores the impact these factors can have on family function and provides intervention strategies and techniques that have proven successful in the treatment of families affected by them.

Receiving special attention are the structure, dynamics, and unique problems of families that do not fit the traditional mold. Experts in these areas share their findings and provide clinical guidelines for treating bi-nuclear, single-parent, gay and lesbian, and other nontraditional families. Offering the combined knowledge and expertise of some of the nation's foremost researchers and practitioners in their fields, Treating the Changing Family: Handling Normative and Unusual Events is a valuable resource for couples and family therapists, counselors, clinical psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, and all mental health professionals who treat today's changing family.

Of related interest in the... Wiley Series in Couples and Family Dynamics and Treatment

IN-LAWS A Guide to Extended-Family Therapy

Gloria Call Horsley

The first professional book devoted exclusively to the causes and cures of unhealthy in-law relationships, this highly accessible reference/field manual arms you and your clients with a retinue of "battle-tested" tools and techniques for quickly identifying and resolving most problems that arise in in-law relationships. Gloria Call Horsley, a therapist who has been treating extended families for more than a decade, traces the development of healthy and unhealthy in-law relationships. She examines common sources of in-law problems, including overinvolvement, conflicting family loyalties, socio-cultural differences, prolonged illness, and aging, as well as financial and legal issues. And, with the help of dozens of vignettes and several full-length case studies, she clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the therapeutic interventions she describes and provides clear, step-by-step guidance on when and how to use these techniques to optimal effect. 1996 (0-471-12914-3) 248 pp.

Handbook of Relational Diagnosis and Dysfunctional Family Patterns

Florence W. Kaslow, Editor

Relational diagnosis is a concept whose time has come. In this groundbreaking new book, edited by one of the most prominent innovators in family therapy, leading clinicians and researchers present a clinically based typology of relational disorders. The book examines the role of diagnosis in couples and family therapy, and offers criteria for diagnosing a broad spectrum of couple-centered, parent-child, and family disorders, and dysfunctional relational patterns. Hailed as a major advancement in the field, this important volume argues convincingly that the time has come to adopt a standardized nomenclature that would promote clinical outcome assessment, facilitate third-party reimbursement, and permit succinct and accurate communication of patient problems among mental health professionals, and between couples, and family clinicians and their patients. 1996 (0-471-08078-0) 450 pp.