101 Interventions in Family Therapy

Here is an exciting collection of favorite and successful family therapy interventions from therapists that will inspire more creative therapy methods in your own practice. 101 Interventions in Family Therapy features contributions by a diverse group of well-known leaders in the field, “therapists on the street,” and faculty of family therapy training programs. Each clinician presents a creative and useful intervention beginning with a complete description of the method, followed by the specific indications and contraindications for its application, and concludes with a particular case illustration. These engaging and informative stories document helpful interventions that really work, not the exotic and impractical methods of prolific marriage and family authors. Therapists at all levels can learn and incorporate these into their work with families.

Thorana S Nelson, Terry S Trepper

Contents Preface - The Other Side - The Case of the Missing Client: Using Non-Pejorative Language With Strong Denial Systems - Read Aloud - Stepfamily Enrichment: Assets Feedback - Ingredients of an Interaction - The Tug-of-War Toilet - Metaphors on Space - The Treatment of Postdivorce Adjustment Problems Through Cognitive Restructuring - Termination as a Therapeutic Technique - The Communication Stone - Termination Rituals - Growthful Touch - Using a Funeral Ritual in Therapy: Changing Rigid Interaction Patterns - Neuro-Linguistic Programming in One-Person Family Therapy - Clare's Sonata - Hanging Out: An Intervention for Random Families - Functional Dysfunctions - The Absent Expert: A Method of Indirect Confrontation - Safety for the Little Girl - Facilitating Marital Dialogue: A Few Fundamental Components - Multiple Split Opinion - The Dreaded Transition: Play Therapy from a Meta/Isomorphic Position - If It Walks Like a Duck . . . - Putting Away Old Loyalties in Later Life - Problems With Problem Solving: A Metaphor for Investigation of Problematic Process - Charting the Transactional Map - Problem Definition and Treatment Protocol for Multi-Problem Families - Treating Dual Career Couples - What Is My Part? - The Comrade Stance - The Giving of Gifts--A Therapeutic Ritual - Use of Self and Space - Unconscious Fears - Satir's Parts Party With Couples - The Family as Consultant to the Therapist: A Technique for Facilitating Termination with Reluctant Families - The Struggler - Motorcycle Madness: A Structural Intervention with a Life-Threatening Disorder - Desperately Seeking French Fries - Termination Rituals - Self-Esteem: Everyone's Favorite - A Cross-Cultural Double Date - Healing of the Memories - Burning the Affair: A Ritual for Starting Over and Recommitting - A Strange Thought - Family Meetings: A Tool for Developing Roles and Rules - A Family Intervention: Introducing Sex as a Subject - The Tell-it-Again Intervention - Family Therapy and Psychoeducation - Revisiting the Generations - The Family Regulator of Change Reframe - A Story - Beginner's Luck: A First Fortunate Family Encounter - Defining Conflict as a Demonstration of the Family Problems - Sculpting Progress and Change - The Turtle Who Was Afraid He Could - Making Contact: The First Intervention - Engaging the Difficult Adolescent from Behind the One-Way Mirror - The Use of Metaphor in Providing Feedback on Structured Assessment Procedures - Tommy and His Helpers - A Basic Intervention in Couples Therapy - Letter Writing in Family Therapy - A Change of Names - The Use of Resistant Family Members as Consultants in Therapy - The Use of Fantasy in Breaking Through Impasse - Passing the Baton - Using Bowen's Differentiation of Self Scale to Help Couples Understand and Resolve Marital Conflict - Resurrecting the Ghost of the Master: A Split-Team Technique With One Therapist - Strands of Change - "Pretend a Miracle Happened": A Brief Therapy Task - The Addict's Funeral Plans - The "What-if" Technique - Cultural Reconnections - Compliments - The Use of Gentle Paradox to Address Negative Loyalty - When Words Fail - Male Mystique - What Are Your Children Learning? - The Use of Meal Therapy in the Treatment of Families With Eating Disorders - Combining Individual and Conjoint Sessions in Couples Therapy - What, Where, When, How - Letters to Families Who Leave Therapy Prematurely - Captain's Paradise Concluded - The Divorce Ceremony: A Healing Strategy - Working With Rigid Parents: Reverse Images and Reframes - An Application of Programmed Writing: Arguing and Fighting - Treating Information Processing Errors - A Family Photograph - Silence - The