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.

Ira D. Glick is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and formerly Chief of the Schizophrenia Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine, USA.

Douglas S. Rait is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Chief of the Couples and Family Therapy Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine, USA.

Alison M. Heru is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado, USA.

Michael S. Ascher is Clinical Associate in Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Forewords xix
Ellen M. Berman MD, Lloyd I. Sederer MD

Preface xxvii

Acknowledgments xxxi

A Guide for Using the Text xxxiii

List of Tables xxxvii

List of Figures xxxix

Section I Family Therapy in Context

1 The Field of Couples and Family Therapy: Development and Definition 5

2 Family Life in Historical and Sociological Perspective 23

Section II Functional and Dysfunctional Families

3 Understanding the Functional Family 41

4 Understanding the Functional Family in a Variety of Family Forms 59

5 Problems and Dysfunction from an Integrated Family Systems Perspective 75

Section III Family Evaluation

6 The Process of Evaluation 95

7 The Content of Evaluation 107

8 Formulating an Understanding of the Family Problem Areas 117

Section IV Family Treatment

9 Major Family Therapy Schools and Their Treatment Strategies 137

10 Goals 147

11 Family Treatment: Integrated Strategies and Techniques 157

12 The Course of Family Treatment 175

13 Promoting Change in Family Treatment: Issues of Alliance and Resistance 189

14 Family Therapy: General Considerations203

Section V Couples Therapy

15 Dysfunctional Couples and Couples Therapy 221

16 Sex Couples and Sex Therapy 235

17 Couples and Families Breaking Apart: Separation and Divorce 249

Section VI Family Treatment When One Member Has a Psychiatric Disorder or Other Special Problem

18 Family Treatment in the Context of Individual Psychiatric Disorders 267

19 Family Treatment in the Context of Other Special Problems—Violence to Self and Others 301

20 The Family and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Psychiatric Illness 321

21 Working with Families in the

Section VII Results of and Guidelines for Recommending Family Therapy

23 Controversies Relative Contraindications and the Use and Misuse of Couples and Family Therapy 371

24 Results: The Outcomes of Couples and Family Therapy 381

Section VIII Ethical Professional and Training Issues

25 Ethical and Professional Issues in Couples and Family Therapy 405

Suggested Reading 419

References 419

Index 421