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Therapeutic Intervention with Poor, Unorganized Families
Therapeutic Intervention with Poor, Unorganized From Distress to Hope offers you integrated theories, practice, and research to provide you with the tools to be more effective when dealing with families in crisis. Therapeutic Intervention with Poor, Unorganized Families explores the decline of families into extreme distress and helps you to determine the best intervention for that particular family, as no one single method can be prescribed for all families. Therapists as well as clients favor the joint-goal intervention you will discover through this book, which is carried out mostly in the family home where the therapist can delegate authority as a means of strengthening and preserving the family. Through Therapeutic Intervention with Poor, Unorganized Families, you will receive a plethora of ideas which consist of multiple intervention techniques and alternatives for intervention,
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Terry S. Trepper
49 books1 followerTerry S. Trepper, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized scholar, educator, and researcher, winning numerous awards and honors in each of these domains. He has been a professor at Purdue University Northwest since 1981 and prior to that worked in community mental health as a family psychologist. Terry’s scholarly and training interests include the evidence-basis of solution-focused therapy, systemic and solution-focused approaches to treating substance abuse, and positive psychology.
Trepper is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Purdue University Northwest and for the past 26 years has been the Editor of the Journal of Family Psychotherapy. Terry is the co-editor of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: A Handbook of Evidence-Based Practice (with Cynthia Franklin, Wallace Gingerich, and Eric McCollum) Oxford University Press; co-author of More than Miracles: The State of the Art in Solution-Focused Therapy (with Steve de Shazer, Yvonne Dolan, Harry Korman, Eric McCollum, and Insoo Berg); co-author (with Mary Jo Barrett) of Systemic Treatment of Incest: A Therapeutic Handbook, published by Brunner/Routledge; Treating Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective, published by Haworth Press; 101 Interventions in Family Therapy (with Thorana Nelson), published by Haworth Press, 1993, 101 MoreInterventions in Family Therapy (1995); and Family Solutions for Substance Abuse (with Eric McCollum) published by Haworth Press, 2001.
Trepper is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Purdue University Northwest and for the past 26 years has been the Editor of the Journal of Family Psychotherapy. Terry is the co-editor of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: A Handbook of Evidence-Based Practice (with Cynthia Franklin, Wallace Gingerich, and Eric McCollum) Oxford University Press; co-author of More than Miracles: The State of the Art in Solution-Focused Therapy (with Steve de Shazer, Yvonne Dolan, Harry Korman, Eric McCollum, and Insoo Berg); co-author (with Mary Jo Barrett) of Systemic Treatment of Incest: A Therapeutic Handbook, published by Brunner/Routledge; Treating Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective, published by Haworth Press; 101 Interventions in Family Therapy (with Thorana Nelson), published by Haworth Press, 1993, 101 MoreInterventions in Family Therapy (1995); and Family Solutions for Substance Abuse (with Eric McCollum) published by Haworth Press, 2001.
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November 28, 2009
Maybe it's not fair to penalize a book for not being what you'd hoped it would be, especially if what you were hoping for was a user-friendly manual that spelled out the magic solution to helping families coping with multiple overwhelming stressors as a one-hour-a-week therapist.
The book begins with a historical review of the views of multi-problem families, which I found only marginally interesting and even less relevant to my work. It then discusses the "coalition of despair" whereby the therapist inadvertently ends up adopting the family's helpless view of their problems -- something I can well relate to. According to the authors, this can be overcome through pre-work preparation for the therapist, working as part of a team, and using supervision. In my experience, I found my pre-work preparation inadequate (which may be a function of my graduate studies or, on the other hand, may be a function of the fact that one can't ever be realistically prepared for some of the tragic situations clients are in), a team approach almost non-existent (alas, the people who would most benefit from a team of therapists are in the worst position to afford the added cost), and supervision variable in terms of its helpfulness. In other words, the authors' advice works better in theory than in practice.
The authors then offer a "Descriptive Scale of Families in Extreme Distress," a measurement tool which can be used to assess just how troubled families are, and on how many dimensions; an evaluation which strikes me as more helpful for research than for clinical purposes. After all, how helpful is it to me to know that a family scores an "8" or a "10" on a scale of distress? The authors then describe their clinical approach, which includes joining with the family and orienting them to therapy and, once you've created a safe environment, working to help them improve their communication and functioning. As the authors themselves point out, this is pretty much what you'd do with any family; the difference is that it may take longer to assure safety with a family in extreme distress.
The authors do recommend conducting therapy in the family's home rather than in the office to ensure attendance, a wise idea for families who have legitimate difficulties organizing themselves, procuring transportation, etc. This idea, as well as conducting therapy in a team rather than alone, is one that I could see being very useful for work with multi-problem families. Unfortunately, I don't know how many settings can practically provide this; it's expensive and logistically complicated.
The authors further discuss familiar techniques (structuring, creating boundaries, empowering, etc.) and how they apply with multi-problem families, both didactically and using case examples. They include interesting chapters on working as part of a multi-professional team to help these families and on supervision in the context of working with multi-problem families. The rest of the book describes, in detail, a research study they performed on using their therapeutic approach (i.e., in-home therapy with a therapeutic team using their techniques) with families suffering multiple stressors. Not surprisingly, their approach worked, at least per the measurement in the study. The question of whether their approach can, and will, be adopted by the appropriate agencies remains open.
In sum, some parts of this book were more helpful than others. I didn't learn a whole lot of new information, and the luxury of a therapeutic team or performing regular home visits to my clients is not one that's available to me, nor, I suspect, to most therapists serving this population. But this book might be good for someone who's just starting to work with difficult families as exposure to some of the things to expect.
The book begins with a historical review of the views of multi-problem families, which I found only marginally interesting and even less relevant to my work. It then discusses the "coalition of despair" whereby the therapist inadvertently ends up adopting the family's helpless view of their problems -- something I can well relate to. According to the authors, this can be overcome through pre-work preparation for the therapist, working as part of a team, and using supervision. In my experience, I found my pre-work preparation inadequate (which may be a function of my graduate studies or, on the other hand, may be a function of the fact that one can't ever be realistically prepared for some of the tragic situations clients are in), a team approach almost non-existent (alas, the people who would most benefit from a team of therapists are in the worst position to afford the added cost), and supervision variable in terms of its helpfulness. In other words, the authors' advice works better in theory than in practice.
The authors then offer a "Descriptive Scale of Families in Extreme Distress," a measurement tool which can be used to assess just how troubled families are, and on how many dimensions; an evaluation which strikes me as more helpful for research than for clinical purposes. After all, how helpful is it to me to know that a family scores an "8" or a "10" on a scale of distress? The authors then describe their clinical approach, which includes joining with the family and orienting them to therapy and, once you've created a safe environment, working to help them improve their communication and functioning. As the authors themselves point out, this is pretty much what you'd do with any family; the difference is that it may take longer to assure safety with a family in extreme distress.
The authors do recommend conducting therapy in the family's home rather than in the office to ensure attendance, a wise idea for families who have legitimate difficulties organizing themselves, procuring transportation, etc. This idea, as well as conducting therapy in a team rather than alone, is one that I could see being very useful for work with multi-problem families. Unfortunately, I don't know how many settings can practically provide this; it's expensive and logistically complicated.
The authors further discuss familiar techniques (structuring, creating boundaries, empowering, etc.) and how they apply with multi-problem families, both didactically and using case examples. They include interesting chapters on working as part of a multi-professional team to help these families and on supervision in the context of working with multi-problem families. The rest of the book describes, in detail, a research study they performed on using their therapeutic approach (i.e., in-home therapy with a therapeutic team using their techniques) with families suffering multiple stressors. Not surprisingly, their approach worked, at least per the measurement in the study. The question of whether their approach can, and will, be adopted by the appropriate agencies remains open.
In sum, some parts of this book were more helpful than others. I didn't learn a whole lot of new information, and the luxury of a therapeutic team or performing regular home visits to my clients is not one that's available to me, nor, I suspect, to most therapists serving this population. But this book might be good for someone who's just starting to work with difficult families as exposure to some of the things to expect.
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