Assessing Family Relationships

Assessing Family Relationships shows mental health professionals how to utilize the Family Life Space Drawing (the FLSD), a family assessment tool that incorporates information from multiple family members while building connections between the clinician and the client. In this manual, Theresa A. Beeton and Ronald A. Clark demonstrate the usefulness of the FLSD in both family and couple counseling. As a task-centered assessment tool, the FLSD enables an interactive and personalized process of counseling, which helps individuals to express concerns and information about themselves in an indirect and nonthreatening manner. Chapters are illustrated throughout with case studies and drawings adapted from the authors’ own clinical experience, and the manual offers an overview of the history of the FLSD, as well as where future research is headed. Providing a practical explanation of how to complete the FLSD process, Assessing Family Relationships will be highly relevant to couple and family therapists, as well as clinical social workers, who are interested in updating their practice with innovative family assessment research and techniques.

Adult attachment style is a key framework for understanding problems in human relationships. This practical book introduces and explains an easily accessible assessment tool for adult attachment style, the Attachment Style Interview (ASI). It then discusses appropriate interventions that can be made to help families.

The primary challenge of delivering and evaluating family-based services lies in successfully assessing changes in families. This guide provides instruction for use of the Family Assessment Form (FAF), an instrument to help practitioners assess families at the beginning of service, develop individualized family service plans, monitor family progress, and assess outcomes for individual families. The FAF is designed as a standardized form that is adaptable for a variety of clinical, procedural, and program needs. Using a 9-point rating scale for individual items, the FAF enables practitioners to complete a psychosocial assessment of six areas of family functioning that is recorded in a quantitative manner and allows for monitoring family progress. The six areas of family functioning assessed by the FAF are: (1) living conditions; (2) financial conditions; (3) support available to caregivers; (4) interactions between caregivers and children; (5) developmental stimulation available to children; and (6) interactions between adult caregivers. The instruction guide provides a rationale for family assessment, details the development of the FAF, describes the FAF, provides information on training individuals to administer the instrument, describes the use of the FAF for program evaluation, discusses its test reliability and validity, and contains instructions for completing the FAF. A complete copy of the instrument is contained in the guide, including the "face sheet," the family functioning factors section, caregiver history and characteristics section, behavior concerns/observation checklist, and the service plan and closing summary. Contains 13 references. (KB)

A master of family therapy, Salvador Minuchin, traces for the first time the minute operations of day-to-day practice. Dr. Minuchin has achieved renown for his theoretical breakthroughs and his success at treatment. Now he explains in close detail those precise and difficult maneuvers that constitute his art. The book thus codifies the method of one of the country's most successful practitioners.

Focusing primarily on instruments that concern whole family functioning or the functioning of multiple family relationships, FAMILY ASSESSMENT methodically covers measures involving the coding of family interaction, the global rating of family processes, and self-reports of perceptions of family functioning. With the continuity of an authored, rather than an edited text, this authoritative and up-to-date reference encompasses the best current measures in the broad field of family studies, presenting detailed descriptions as well as critical evaluations of selected measures. This innovative work will greatly assist clinicians, researchers, students, and other family scholars in the selection of appropriate measures for research questions or for clinical screening, diagnosis, and treatment evaluation.

The Family System Test (FAST), developed by Thomas M. Gehring, is an important new tool for investigating family relations. Based on the structural-systemic theory of families, it is a figural technique for representing emotional bonds (cohesion) and hierarchical structures in the family or similar social systems. In this unique volume, the editors draw on current theory and research in family or similar social systems together with a variety of empirical studies that have used the FAST, to provide a comprehensive overview and assessment of the test and its use in various clinical research contexts. The book is divided into four sections, each focusing on a different aspect of the FAST. Part 1 describes the concepts and psychometric properties of the FAST within the context of theoretically and empirically relevant aspects of the field of family psychology as a whole. Special emphasis is given to systematic-structural approaches to assessing individual and family functioning. Part II focuses on the use of the FAST in developmental research. For example, the the FAST has been used to show how family constructs are influenced by age, type of family and situation. Part III deals with cross-cultural issues and compares the interpersonal constructs of Japanese and Chinese families to Western families. Finally, Part IV addresses the applications of the FAST in clinical setting - in diagnosis of biopsychosocial problems and planning and evaluation of clinical interventions. The result is a book that helps to bridge the gap between theory, practice and research. It will be essential reading for users of the FAST and all clinicians and researchers who work in family relations and development.

Psychologists offer an increasing variety of services to the public. Among these services, psychological assessment of personality and behavior continues to be a central activity. One main reason is that other mental health professionals often do not possess a high level of competence in this area. And when dealing with children and adolescents, psychological assessment seems to take on an even greater role. Therefore, it follows that comprehensive graduate-level instruction in assessment should be a high priority for educators of psychologists who will work with these youth. This textbook is organized into three sections, consistent with the authors’ approach to teaching. Part I provides students with the psychological knowledge base necessary for modern assessment practice, including historical perspectives, measurement science, child psychopathology, ethical, legal, and cultural issues, and the basics of beginning the assessment process. Part II gives students a broad review of the specific assessment methods used by psychologists, accompanied by specific advice regarding the usage and strengths and weaknesses of each method. In Part III, we help students perform some of the most sophisticated of assessment practices: integrating and communicating assessment results and infusing assessment practice with knowledge of child development and psychopathology to assess some of the most common types of behavioral and emotional disorders in youth. A text focusing on assessment practices must be updated every four to six years to keep pace with advances in test development. For example, several of the major tests reviewed in the text, such as the Behavioral Assessment System for Children and the Child Behavior Checklist, have undergone major revisions since the publication of the last edition making the current content outdated. Further, another major test, the Conners’ Rating Scales, is undergoing substantial revisions that should be completed before publication of the next edition. Finally, the evidence for the validity of the tests and the recommendations for their appropriate use evolve as research accumulates and requires frequent updating to remain current. For example, there was a special issue of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology published focusing on evidenced-based assessment of the major forms of childhood psychopathology that will need to be integrated into the chapters in Part 3. This latter point reflects an important trend in the field that should influence the marketing of the book. That is, there are several initiatives being started in all of the major areas of applied psychology (e.g., school, clinical, and counseling) to promote evidenced-based assessment practices. These initiatives have all emphasized the need to enhance the training of graduate students in this approach to assessment. This has been the orientation of this textbook from its first edition: that is, Clinical Assessment of Child and Adolescent Personality and Behavior has focused on using research to guide all recommendations for practice. The ability of the textbook to meet this training need should be an important focus of marketing the book to training programs across all areas of applied psychology.