The Family Journal

Fear of death and losses in life contribute to withdrawal from the world and lack of knowledge about oneself. Finding one’s place in the world is facilitated by appreciating impermanence, immersing oneself in nature, and becoming fully present in intimate relationships. This reflection integrates literature and poetry to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by impermanence.

This study focused on the relational conflict cycle within the relational restoration model proposed by Sells, Beckenbach, and Patrick. The model is drawn from contextual family theory, object relations theory, and the emotional focus theory. Participating couples (N = 215) completed a demographic questionnaire and four assessments measuring conflict, pain, defense, and injury. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the relational conflict model and contributes to the understanding of relational conflict processes. The significant findings have implications for both relational research and couples counseling.

Marriage and family counselors often encounter couples whose chief complaint is infidelity. Different models and interventions for couples working through the discovery of infidelity have been presented in the literature, which includes a vast array of articles addressing the interpersonal trauma associated with affairs; however, much of the literature presents a victim/offender model, which may not highlight systemic implications. Infidelity within relationships may also lead to grieving the idea of what the relationship was and what it represented. The systemic impact of the trauma-like and related grieving processes associated with infidelity is presented along with a case study to depict the application of a psychoeducational first step in the recovery process.

This article explores the impact of relationship education on young adults’ optimism about relationships and attitudes toward marriage whose parents were divorced and offers implications and suggestions for counselors and counselor educators. Previous research in the area of intimate and family relationships has demonstrated that adults who have experienced a parental divorce in childhood often enter their own intimate relationships with altered expectations and perceptions about their chances for success. A pilot study was conducted exploring whether participating in an intimate relationships course impacted attitudes toward marriage and optimism about relationships among those who experienced a parental divorce as compared with those who came from nondivorced homes. While no significant changes in attitude or optimism were found upon completion of the course, post hoc analyses found significant differences between students who perceive their family of origin as healthy as compared with students who perceive their family of origin as unhealthy, regardless of parental divorce. Conclusions and recommendations for future research are provided.

Some common ways that couples speak to one another have the effect of inducing defensiveness and generating endless and unwinnable arguments that effectively shut down the possibility of genuine communication. This article uncovers the problematic underlying assumptions of the implicit ‘‘objective’’ frame of reference that underlies those common ways of speaking and describes how the Expressive Skill within the Relationship Enhancement (RE) therapy and psychoeducational model points to an alternative, subjective frame of reference that can help break through the all-too-common impasses in communication that otherwise result. The radical nature of the RE Expressive Skill is that its implications go beyond simply coaching people how to express themselves more skillfully and respectfully but instead help people change the very way they think about their own and other people’s experience by coming to recognize that all human experience is intrinsically subjective in its very nature.

Family issues may be evident in adolescents with behavioral and emotional issues admitted to crisis residence. In this study, 120 adolescents admitted to crisis residence were evaluated using the Target Symptom Rating scale and the Goal Attainment Scale of Stabilization. Behavioral and emotional issues specific to adolescents’ capabilities toward achieving relevant therapeutic goals while in the crisis residence setting are identified and implications to family counseling and interventions are noted.

A web-based modified Delphi study identified facilitators and barriers of implementing Functional Family Therapy at five community mental health agencies located in the northeastern part of the United States. Three levels of staff comprising 13 panelists (3 administrators, 3 supervisors, and 7 clinicians) completed the study. Group consensus was reached on four facilitators and one barrier. The four facilitators (collaboration, training, agencies’ readiness, and funding source expectations) and one barrier (lack of appropriateness for some populations) provide a better understanding of community-based issues when trying to transport and implement evidence-based family programs. Future research investigating the experiences of families and clients receiving services will provide a more systemic perspective.

An adapted version of Lamb’s model was used to examine types of paternal involvement (positive engagement, access to the child, and financial stability) engaged in by cohabiting and non-cohabiting low-income fathers across four age groups. The sample consisted of 2,512 low-income fathers who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Well-being study. Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that age group of father and cohabitation status had a significant effect on all three dimensions of paternal involvement. Adolescent fathers had more limited access and were less engaged than fathers in other age groups, even though they were more financially stable. This study provides practitioners with a developmental perspective on paternal involvement that is useful in working with low-income fathers.

The theory of emotional intelligence has elicited great interest both in the academic and the nonacademic world. Therapists, educators, and parents want to know what they can do to help children develop their emotional intelligence. However, most of the research in this field has investigated adults’ emotional intelligence. This study reviews the scarce research literature in the area of children’s emotional intelligence. It also reviews the way in which parenting styles and practices predict children’s emotional intelligence in similar or different ways that they predict other developmental outcomes. Based on the parenting literature, four main dimensions of parenting are identified that are relevant to the study of emotional intelligence: parental responsiveness, parental positive demandingness, parental negative demandingness, and parental emotion-related coaching. Parental responsiveness, parental emotion-related coaching, and parental positive demandingness are related to children’s higher emotional intelligence, while parental negative demandingness is related to children’s lower emotional intelligence. Additionally, social—emotional intervention programs used in schools have succeeded in improving children’s emotional skills. Implications for practitioners are discussed.

This article describes the results of research study that investigated the relationship between life satisfaction and three primary protective factors—la adaptabilidad, la sabiduría, and pariente—that contribute to family resilience for Mexican American elderly who are experiencing self-reported anxiety. A sample of 135 Mexican Americans aged 65 and older were administered measures to assess self-reported anxiety, life satisfaction, and the three protective factors. Of these, 60 met the cutoff criteria for high anxiety and either high or low life satisfaction and were included in the final analyses. A significant positive relationship was found between higher perceptions of the protective factors la sabiduría and pariente and high life satisfaction. No significant relationship was found between la adaptabilidad and life satisfaction. These results provide support for a position asserting that the degree to which elderly Mexican Americans’ perceive their families to possess certain protective qualities may provide a competence-based focus for mediating adaptation in the presence of self-reported anxiety.

Grandparents raising their grandchildren in parent-absent homes are an increasing family structure. A myriad of family and societal problems create the need for the grandparent to assume caregiving responsibilities, including child maltreatment, parental substance abuse, and poverty. Although grandparent-headed families (GHF) are represented across racial, gender, and socioeconomic groups, single, low-income African American grandmothers from urban environments experience this family structure in disproportionately higher rates. Due to their higher prevalence, and the relative lack of attention in the existing literature, African American grandmother caregivers are the focus of this research. The present study is an exploratory study of the qualitative experiences of African American grandmothers who are the primary caregivers of their grandchildren. Individual interviews were conducted with 6 grandmother caregivers, revealing 5 major themes. Results are discussed, and directions for future research and implications for counselors working with GHF are presented.

Bowen theory focuses on the concept of emotional functioning, specifically among and within the family. The goal of therapy is to engage the family members in understanding the patterns of dysfunctional behavior. Little attention, however, is paid to incorporating children into the family systems work. Play therapy, within the framework of the Bowen theory, encourages participation from all family members, points to the interactions of the family members with each other, and links these systemic patterns to the reason why the family was referred to therapy. This article describes the basic tenets of the Bowen theory and how the play therapy techniques of art, sandtray, and puppets facilitate therapeutic interventions when using this model. A case study is provided.

Focusing on individual communication styles can guide interventions, provide natural validation, and enhance creativity in the counseling relationship. The author has developed a framework for defining individual communication style components, drawing on learning style theory and Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Using the natural language of the client, problem solving is better connected to client strengths.

Heart disease is an increasingly common chronic medical condition that affects not only patients but their families. Because this condition has significant psychosocial impact, effective treatment requires an integration of psychosocial treatment—including individual, couples, and family counseling—with conventional medical treatment. Individual psychological dynamics as well as couple and family dynamics that influence the treatment process are described along with implications for family counseling. An illustrative case example is included.

This literature review examines the nature of sexual fantasies and their impact (both negative and positive) on arousal. The effects of guilt and shame resulting from religious negativism—specifically Christianity—toward fantasies is explored. Implications for clinical treatment of highly religious persons presenting for treatment of decreased sexual arousal are discussed.