Counseling African American Marriages And Families

Important questions face any pastoral counselor when working with African American couples and families. Edward Wimberly focuses on the religious worldview that African Americans bring to their understanding of marriage and family, so that the counselor can learn the assumptions behind the presenting problems. Wimberly's treatment examines the social context of African American families, the separate issues for men and women, intergenerational factors, the impact of the life cycle, sexuality, affairs, and abuse. This wide-ranging book is exceptionally practical for all pastoral caregivers. The purpose of the Counseling and Pastoral Theology series is to address clinical issues that arise among particular populations currently neglected in the literature on pastoral care and counseling. This series is committed to enhancing both the theoretical base and the clinical expertise of pastoral caregivers by providing a pastoral theological paradigm that will inform both assessment and intervention with persons in these specific populations.

This exciting new text on counseling African American couples outlines critical components to providing culturally-sensitive treatment. Built around a framework that examines African American couples’ issues as well as the specific contextual factors that can negatively impact their relationships, it: • Addresses threats to love and intimacy for Black couples • Provides culturally relevant, strengths-based approaches and assessment practices • Includes interesting case studies at the conclusion of each chapter that illustrate important concepts. The chapters span the current state of couple relationships; readers will find information for working with lesbians and gays in relationships, pastoral counseling, and intercultural Black couples. There is also a chapter for non-Black therapists who work with Black clients. Dispersed throughout the book are interviews with prominent African American couples’ experts: Dr. Chalandra Bryant, relationship expert Audrey B. Chapman, Dr. Daryl Rowe and Dr. Sandra Lyons-Rowe, and Dr. Thomas Parham. They provide personal insight on issues such as the strengths African Americans bring to relationships, their skills and struggles, and gender and class considerations. This must-read book will significantly help you and your clients.

African American Relationships, Marriages, and Families, Second Edition is a historically and culturally centered research-based text designed for use in undergraduate, graduate, and community-based courses on African American relationships, marriages, and families. Complete with numerous exercises, this volume can be used by current and future helping professionals to guide singles and couples by increasing single and partner-awareness, and respect and appreciation for difference. In addition, singles and couples learn skills for effective communication and conflict resolution and ultimately how to develop and maintain healthy relationships, marriages, and families. This second edition includes updates and revisions to current chapters and also features two new chapters: one on parenting and one on same-gender loving/LGBTQ.

In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Vera S. Paster, a marriage counselor and therapist, and Anita Doreen Diggs, author of The African American Resource Guide, help African American couples cope with all of the pressures on their marriage and guide them in re-discovering the joy, intimacy and passion of their relationship. Dr. Paster discusses the difficulties African American couples face, including white collar women marrying blue collar men; the problems of blended families; bringing aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents back into your life; the stereotype of black male as king; the heartbreak of depression, addiction, abuse and adultery; and many other important issues. In her warm, down-to-earth style, she reveals the steps that every couple must take to overcome these difficulties and put their marriage on solid footing. By showing black couples how to draw on the unique strengths of their forefathers, she gives husbands and wives the traditional tools they need to get through the tough times. In addition, she offers suggestions on what not to bring up in an argument, 50 ways to enhance your marriage, using community activism and church involvement to bring you closer together, and much more. A unique book that answers all of your questions and concerns, STAYING MARRIED is a wise voice to help you successfully build a loving relationship that will last a lifetime.

There are many different models of marriage and family therapy; the challenge for students and beginning practitioners is deciding which one best suits their individual purposes. This highly practical volume elucidates the defining characteristics of 14 contemporary models, including their history, views of change, views of family and the role of the therapist; and methods of assessing family dynamics, goal setting; facilitating change; and knowing when to terminate. Each chapter also includes a template for implementing therapy models, and realistic case studies-many drawn from actual practice-to illustrate how each model would address common issues. In addition, the volume includes extensive interviews with master therapists such as Albert Ellis, Insoo Kim Berg, Sue Johnson, Susan McDaniel, Derald Wing Sue, and many others. They share their ideas of the ways in which change occurs, how they set goals, and how they perform therapy. For further clarification, each therapist illustrates how he/she would proceed via the same case study. Learning how to perform effective family therapy can be an arduous process of trial and error, yet this resource will ease the way for students and currently practicing family therapists who need to revisit the basics. Modalities Included Bowen Family Systems Theory Contextual Family Therapy Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy Models Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Symbolic-Experiential Family Therapy Satir Human Validation Process Model Milan Systemic Family Therapy Structural Family Therapy Strategic Family Therapy Solution-Focused Brief Therapy with Families Narrative Therapy with Families Emotionally Focused Therapy Medical Family Therapy Family Psychoeducation Key Features: Introduces the theory, history, theoretical assumptions, techniques, and components of each model Includes a template for using each model, from the initial meeting through assessment, intervention, and termination Provides numerous interviews with master therapists Includes case study commentary and analysis by master therapists Suggests questions, therapeutic strategies, and/or comments to consider for each therapeutic phase Includes a personality inventory to help readers select the most effective modality

Perhaps no other group of people has been as much formed by biblical texts and tropes as African Americans. From literature and the arts to popular culture and everyday life, the Bible courses through black society and culture like blood through veins. Despite the enormous recent interest in African American religion, relatively little attention has been paid to the diversity of ways in which African Americans have utilized the Bible. African Americans and the Bible is the fruit of a four-year collaborative research project directed by Vincent L. Wimbush and funded by the Lilly Endowment. It brings together scholars and experts (sixty-eight in all) from a wide range of academic and artistic fields and disciplines--including ethnography, cultural history, and biblical studies as well as art, music, film, dance, drama, and literature. The focus is on the interaction between the people known as African Americans and that complex of visions, rhetorics, and ideologies known as the Bible. As such, the book is less about the meaning(s) of the Bible than about the Bible and meaning(s), less about the world(s) of the Bible than about how worlds and the Bible interact--in short, about how a text constructs a people and a people constructs a text. It is about a particular sociocultural formation but also about the dynamics that obtain in the interrelation between any group of people and sacred texts in general. Thus African Americans and the Bible provides an exemplum of sociocultural formation and a critical lens through which the process of sociocultural formation can be viewed.

Eighteen chapters covering assessment, transgenerational, and constructive techniques share contributors' adaptations of the family counseling literature to clinical realities. Appends The How I Remember My Family Questionnaire. Lacks an index.