The Family Journal

We are living in a very distressing time. Each day, the news is filled with disturbing accounts of war, bioterrorism, questionable accidents, threats, and scares. Adults and children alike feel threatened in their everyday lives. Although many counselors are familiar with ways to help families cope with crisis, loss, and grief, little training has been focused on helping families cope with the stress related to amorphous threats. This article, which can be shared with parents, discusses some tools and guidelines that can be used to help parents help their children cope. Topics include how parents can talk with different aged children, how they can help children turn fear into resiliency, what the signs of distress are, and how to use family meetings to teach coping skill sand establisha forum for open communication.

This article provides an overview of two crisis intervention techniques used by a marriage and family counselor who served as a crisis counselor in New York City after the September 11th terrorist attack. The intervention techniques described are Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and one-on-one crisis counseling. An overview of both techniques as well as the actual application are described.

This article is an account of the development of the Mother-Adult Daughter Questionnaire (MAD) to measure adult daughters’ perceptions of their relationship with their mothers in a culturally sensitive manner. The MAD was administered to 91 women from three ethnic groups (Asian Indian American, Mexican American, and European American) to establish validity. The instrument contains 18 items and three subscales: Connectedness, Interdependence, and Trust in Hierarchy. Trust in Hierarchy is a newly developed culturally sensitive construct. Items for subscales were constructed using cross-cultural and mother-daughter literature and were refined after an initial pilot study. Subscale reliability (alpha) ranged from .86 to .92. Findings indicate that the MAD has promise as a reliable and valid measure of the mother-daughter relationship across cultures.

A marital group intervention was developed to address communication, conflict, forgiveness, and reconciliation. This article reviews the history of marital group intervention and presents a description of an 8-week marital group intervention. Results indicated improvement in forgiveness skills, anger expression, and marital satisfaction at posttest, and atrophy of most gains at follow-up.

Multiple Family Group Therapy has been identified as a viable treatment model for a variety of client populations. A combination of family systems theories and therapeutic group factors provide the opportunity to explore multiple levels of intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships between families. All group members are afforded the opportunity of both giving and receiving feedback about strengthening their own family ties. This article depicts a Multiple Family Group Therapy model based on interpersonal and postmodern theories of therapy. A theoretical base is provided in conjunction with descriptions of weekly activities.

The Conduct Disorder Intervention Group of a Marriage and Family Therapy Program of a large Midwestern university used the research and theory about affect regulation and attachment strategies of families to develop a low-cost multiple-family group intervention for incarcerated adolescents and their parents. In this article, the author reviews the research that underlies the intervention, describes the development of the videotapes used, discusses the intervention curriculum, and delineates the roadblocks and new avenues discovered as this intervention was conducted over the past 3 years.

The religious and spiritual concerns of clients and families experiencing divorce can be complicated and deep rooted. Many counselors are faced with the task of helping clients through divorce within a religious context, a context that is uncomfortable for many. This article suggests several strategies to increase awareness of religious and spiritual implications of divorce for clients, counselors, supervisors, and society as a whole.

During the past 20 to 30 years, professionals have given increased attention to intrafamilial incest, primarily addressing father-daughter incest. More recently, sibling incest, a type of intrafamilial incest, has received notice from mental health professionals; how-ever, many professionals still do not recognize the seriousness of the problem. Some professionals have asserted that sibling incest is as common as, and possibly more common than, parental incest. The prevalence of sibling incest can only be estimated because sex between siblings as a phenomenon has been poorly researched. This article reviews current research on the individual and family dynamics that allow sibling incest to occur, the effects of sibling incest on victims, and current treatment protocols.

This article examines the effectiveness of using creative techniques in counseling. The article addresses issues such as what creative techniques are, why they are used, when to use them, and ideas about how to use them appropriately.

This case presents a couple struggling with their definition of commitment. Their initial definition of commitment focused on what they were each giving up for the relationship and not on what each were receiving. Redefining commitment to create a more honoring definition changed the intimacy level in the relationship.

Interns support the use of transcription as a method for feedback during supervision. Thirty of 45 master’s level interns who experienced supervision with transcripts returned a transcription survey and indicated positive outcomes for this type of supervision. Positive characteristics included efficiency, concreteness (what was actually said), and ease in analyzing and constructing productive responses. The supervisor’s reinforcement (written) was provided as often as was necessary. Negative aspects of using transcriptions included anxiety associated with the visual reminder of the lack of developed skills, loss of nonverbal behaviors, and less personal interaction between the supervisor and intern.

This article describes how a family therapy perspective can be integrated into group as a treatment modality. This conceptual approach offers new possibilities for marriage and family therapists when women alone seek help. Concepts from family therapy are illustrated through a description of a specific women’s group and case study. Techniques from family therapy applied in group are derived from multigenerational, experiential/humanistic, and cognitive-behavioral approaches. Among them are the genogram, sculpting, role playing, reframing, and reconstructing the story. This integrative approach makes the process described available to therapists of many orientations. Similarly, the group therapy modality can have a great impact on family treatment.

Internet Web pages providing sexual information are prolific. Finding factual, relevant sexual information responsibly written can be an arduous task for the public and counselors. This article contains an annotated “webliography” containing Internet addresses and descriptions of pertinent Internet sexuality resources for the general public, adolescents, young adults, and older adults. Internet addresses for mental health professionals interested in working with sexual issues are provided as well as Web sites that contain Internet screening information.

This article provides highlights from an interview with Dr. Robert Wubbolding, a leading expert in the area of reality therapy. Details concerning how Dr. Wubbolding applies and integrates reality therapy and choice theory in counseling with couples and families will be explored. In particular, this interview addressed theoretical constructs, specific techniques, and multicultural and diversity issues related to reality therapy and choice theory, in the context of relationship counseling. Specific implications are directed toward clinical practice, training, supervision, and research.