Clinical Methods In Medical Family Therapy

This landmark text describes research-informed practices and applications of Medical Family Therapy (MedFT) across a range of care environments and clinical populations (e.g., family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, alcohol and drug treatment, community health centers, and military and veteran health systems). It is a timely release for a rapidly growing field. It includes the work of some of MedFT’s most innovative leaders, who expertly: illustrate MedFT in action across primary, secondary, tertiary, and other unique health contexts describe the make-up of healthcare teams tailored to each chapter’s distinct environment(s) highlight fundamental knowledge and critical skillsets across diverse healthcare contexts detail research-informed practices for MedFTs who treat patients, couples, families, and communities Clinical Methods in Medical Family Therapy is a comprehensive source for any behavioral health student, trainee, or professional looking to understand the necessary skills for MedFTs entering the healthcare workforce. It is also an essential read for trainers and instructors who are covering the fundamental MedFT knowledge and skills across diverse healthcare contexts. This text was written to be applicable for a wide variety of healthcare disciplines, including family therapy, counseling nursing, medicine, psychology and social work.

“High praise to Hodgson, Lamson, Mendenhall, and Crane and in creating a seminal work for systemic researchers, educators, supervisors, policy makers and financial experts in health care. The comprehensiveness and innovation explored by every author reflects an in depth understanding that reveals true pioneers of integrated health care. Medical Family Therapy: Advances in Application will lead the way for Medical Family Therapists in areas just now being acknowledged and explored.” - Tracy Todd, PhD, LMFT, Executive Director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Integrated, interdisciplinary health care is growing in stature and gaining in numbers. Systems and payers are facilitating it. Patients and providers are benefitting from it. Research is supporting it, and policymakers are demanding it. The emerging field of Medical Family Therapy (MedFT) is contributing greatly to these developments and Medical Family Therapy: Advanced Applications examines its implementation in depth. Leading experts describe MedFT as it is practiced today, the continuum of services provided, the necessary competencies for practitioners, and the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of health that the specialty works to integrate. Data-rich chapters model core concepts such as the practitioner as scientist, the importance of context in health care settings, collaboration with families and communities, and the centrality of the relational perspective in treatment. And the book's wide-spectrum coverage takes in research, training, financial, and policy issues, among them: Preparing MedFTs for the multiple worlds of health care Extending platforms on how to build relationships in integrated care Offering a primer in program evaluation for MedFTs Ensuring health equity in MedFT research Identifying where policy and practice collide with ethics and integrated care Recognizing the cost-effectiveness of family therapy in health care With its sophisticated insights into the current state – and the future – of healthcare reform, Medical Family Therapy: Advanced Applications is essential reading for researchers and practitioners in the fields of clinical psychology, counseling, family therapy, healthcare policy, psychiatric nursing, psychiatry, public health, and social work.

In this widely adopted text and professional reference, leading contributors provide the knowledge needed to design strong qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies; analyze the resulting data; and translate findings into improved practices and programs. Following a consistent format, user-friendly chapters thoroughly describe the various methodologies and illustrate their applications with helpful concrete examples.

The authors demonstrate how therapists can coordinate care with other health professionals dealing with medical problems ranging from infertility to terminal and chronic illness.

Couples and Family Therapy in Clinical Practice has been the psychiatric and mental health clinician's trusted companion for over four decades. This new fifth edition delivers the essential information that clinicians of all disciplines need to provide effective family-centered interventions for couples and families. A practical clinical guide, it helps clinicians integrate family-systems approaches with pharmacotherapies for individual patients and their families. Couples and Family Therapy in Clinical Practice draws on the authors’ extensive clinical experience as well as on the scientific literature in the family-systems, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and neuroscience fields.

Research is vital in moving the field of family therapy forward, but the myriad of possibilities inherent in working with systems and individuals can overwhelm even the most seasoned researcher. Advanced Methods in Family Therapy Research is the best resource to address the day-to-day questions that researchers have as they investigate couples and families, and the best source for learning long-term theory and methodology. The contributors of this volume share their wisdom on a wide variety of topics including validity concerns, measuring interpersonal process and relational change, dyadic data analysis (demonstrated through a sample research study), mixed methods studies, and recruitment and retention. The volume contains one of the most detailed descriptions of data collections and covers interviewing, using questionnaires, and observing brain activity. Also addressed are suggestions to meaningfully reduce cultural bias, to conduct ethical research, and, in the Health Services Research chapter, to examine interventions for clients in various income brackets. A separate, ground-breaking chapter also addresses psychophysiological research in a couple and family therapeutic context. As an added benefit, readers will learn how to become informed consumers of journal articles and studies, how to produce quality, publishable research, and how to write fundable grant proposals. Each chapter provides a clear and detailed guide for students, researchers, and professionals, and as a whole Advanced Methods in Family Therapy Research advances the field by teaching readers how to provide evidence that marriage and family therapy not only relieves symptoms, but also effects behavioral change in all family members.

The latest theory, research, and practice information for family therapy The last twenty years have seen an explosion of new, innovative, and empirically supported therapeutic approaches for treating families. Mental health professionals working with families today apply a wide range of approaches to a variety of situations and clients using techniques based on their clinically and empirically proven effectiveness, their focus on specific individual and relational disorders, their applicability in various contexts, and their prominence in the field. In this accessible and comprehensive text, each chapter covers specific problems, the theoretical and practical elements of the treatment approach, recommended intervention strategies, special considerations, supporting research, and clinical examples. The contributors provide step-by-step guidelines for implementing the approaches described and discuss particular issues that arise in different couple, family, and cultural contexts. Handbook of Clinical Family Therapy covers treatment strategies for the most common problems encountered in family therapy, including: Domestic violence Adolescent defiance, anxiety, and depression Trauma-induced problems Stepfamily conflicts ADHD disruption Substance abuse in adults and adolescents Couple conflict and divorce Chronic illness A detailed reference for today's best treatment strategies, the Handbook of Clinical Family Therapy brings together the top practitioners and scholars to produce an innovative and user-friendly guide for clinicians and students alike.

When Bowen was a student and practitioner of classical psychoanalysis at the Menninger Clinic, he became engrossed in understanding the process of schizophrenia and its relationship to mother-child symbiosis. Between the years 1950 and 1959, at Menninger and later at the National Institute of Mental Health (as first chief of family studies), he worked clinically with over 500 schizophrenic families. This extensive experience was a time of fruition for his thinking as he began to conceptualize human behavior as emerging from within the context of a family system. Later, at Georgetown University Medical School, Bowen worked to extend the application of his ideas to the neurotic family system. Initially he saw his work as an amplification and modification of Freudian theory, but later viewed it as an evolutionary step toward understanding human beings as functioning within their primary networkDtheir family. One of the most renowned theorist and therapist in the field of family work, this book encompasses the breadth and depth of Bowen's contributions. It presents the evolution of Bowen's Family Theory from his earliest essays on schizophrenic families and their treatment, through the development of his concepts of triangulation, intergenerational conflict and societal regression, and culminating in his brilliant exploration of the differentiation of one's self in one's family of origin.