Theory and Practice of Couples and Family Counseling

This text introduces major theories and practices of contemporary couples and family counseling. It addresses the use of theoretical models across several fields, with consideration of health, growth, and resiliency in addition to assessment and remediation; provides examples of work for each approach and work with a single couple or family system that could be used for comparison across models; and focuses on personal and professional development. It discusses the foundations of couples and family counseling, the genogram of couples and family counseling as a structure for considering the history of the field, and ethical, professional, and legal issues; 13 models of counseling, including object relations family counseling, Adlerian family counseling, multigenerational family counseling, the human validation process model, structural family counseling, strategic family counseling, solution-focused and solution-oriented family counseling, postmodernism, social construction, and narratives, feminist family counseling, and cognitive behavioral family counseling, with transcripts of sessions and cultural and gender issues; and the integration and application of the models. This edition has been expanded to emphasize couples counseling and has been updated to reflect recent research and current practices. It has a revised example family and theoretical models to include multicultural dimensions, updated chapters to include sections on working with couples, and three new chapters on couples counseling, including emotionally focused counseling and imago relationship counseling. It moves chapters on Carl Whitaker's symbolic-experiential model and effective parenting online. Annotation 2020 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)