Collaborative Therapy with Multi-stressed Families (revised 2nd edition)
Author(s): William C. Madsen
This volume describes an innovative approach to working with families who have not been well served by traditional mental health, social service, and medical systems. Critically examining many professional assumptions about 'difficult' families, the book outlines clinical practices that facilitate a respectful, constructive, and effective therapeutic relationship.
Highlighted are ways to engage reluctant clients, conduct nonpathologizing assessments, and help families develop communities of support. Of crucial importance, the author proposes that therapists move away from trying to identify and correct old problems. He focuses instead on how to support clients in envisioning desired futures and developing new lives.
Including a wealth of compelling clinical material, the book raises important theoretical and political questions without becoming moralistic and promotes a strengths based focus without romanticizing families or minimizing their difficulties.
Product Information
'Once in a long while is a book written with the power and potential to influence clinical practice in profound and positive ways... Collaborative Therapy with Multi-Stressed Families is such a contribution ... Madsen proposes a framework for assessment that meets the needs of managed care by being goal-directed and outcome-oriented while maintaining a collaborative and resource-based stance ..Highly recommended for family therapy courses as well as for therapists in community agencies.' --- Journal of Systemic Therapies
'Never losing sight of today's practice realities, this graceful, smart book enlightens and inspires' -- Kathy Weingarten, PhD
'This compelling book depicts the genuine complexities of families and their helpers on a canvas of deep compassion, connection and hope ..(a) wonderful jargon-free volume.. a progressive and resourceful approach to seemingly intractable problems' -- Evan Imber-Black, PhD
William C. Madsen, PhD, Family Institute of Cambridge, Watertown, MA, USA
CONTENTS Introduction 1. Working with MultiStressed Families: From Technique to Attitude 2. What We See Is What We Get: Reexamining Our Assessment Process 3. Collaboration Is a Two-Way Street: Engaging Reluctant Families 4. Envisioning New Futures: Developing Collaborative Therapy Contracts with Families 5. Invitational Interaction: An Anthropological Approach to 'Intervening' with Families 6. Helping Clients Take Apart Old Problems and Put Together New Lives 7. Elaborating and Solidifying New Lives 8. Developing Communities to Support New Lives 9. The Larger Helping System as an Appreciative Audience for New Lives 10. Envisioning New Futures, Revisioning Human Services
General Fields
- :
- : Guilford Publications
- : Guilford Publications
- : 01 March 2007
- : books
Special Fields
- : William C. Madsen
- : Paperback
- : Revised 2nd Edition
