Couples and Family Therapy in Clinical Practice [Paperback]

Couples and Family Therapy in Clinical Practice has been the psychiatric and mental health clinician's trusted companion for over four decades. This new fifth edition delivers the essential information that clinicians of all disciplines need to provide effective family-centered interventions for couples and families. A practical clinical guide, it helps clinicians integrate family-systems approaches with pharmacotherapies for individual patients and their families. Couples and Family Therapy in Clinical Practice draws on the authors extensive clinical experience as well as on the scientific literature in the family-systems, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and neuroscience fields.

Forewords xix
Ellen M. Berman MD, Lloyd I. Sederer MD

Preface xxvii

Acknowledgments xxxi

A Guide for Using the Text xxxiii

List of Tables xxxvii

List of Figures xxxix

Section I Family Therapy in Context

1 The Field of Couples and Family Therapy: Development and Definition 5

2 Family Life in Historical and Sociological Perspective 23

Section II Functional and Dysfunctional Families

3 Understanding the Functional Family 41

4 Understanding the Functional Family in a Variety of Family Forms 59

5 Problems and Dysfunction from an Integrated Family Systems Perspective 75

Section III Family Evaluation

6 The Process of Evaluation 95

7 The Content of Evaluation 107

8 Formulating an Understanding of the Family Problem Areas 117

Section IV Family Treatment

9 Major Family Therapy Schools and Their Treatml3|