Preface by Hugh McIsaac Family mediation has quickly become a significant means of legal dispute resolution, recognized in most North American jurisdictions as a relief to already overburdened judicial systems. Using an innovative practical approach, the authors of Family Mediation incorporate the pivotal principles of family therapy into this new context--the judicial realm of family mediation. The practice model--therapeutic family mediation--thoroughly treats history, specific issues, and practice in an ecosystemic approach and responds to feminist critique of mediation. In addition, the authors offer important perspectives on mediating with multicultural populations and the role of the mediator in child custody disputes and child protection cases. Through examination of family mediation research as well as helpful case history vignettes, the authors of this volume take action to fill significant gaps between family therapy and mediation. Family Mediation provides a new take on family mediation that will benefit not only professionals and researchers in family studies, social work, clinical psychology, and sociology but also professional and volunteer mediators, conciliation court personnel, and family law specialists. "Family Mediation is an excellent blend of scholarship and practice, and it is the best of the books I have read on family mediation. First, it is clear and well written. Second, it provides an in-depth, current review of the divorce literature. The literature on divorce is large, uneven, and difficult to interpret. The authors have done a service to the profession by skillfully reviewing and integrating this literature." --Stephen J. Bahr, Brigham Young University "This book is one of the most comprehensive and well-researched texts on mediation to date. The authors have compiled an immense array of information regarding the history of family mediation, the practice and knowledge base, a review of literature regarding divorce, the principles of mediation, gender and cultural issues, elements in a child custody dispute, sharing parenting, cultural issues, and the use of mediation in dependency, and they include an excellent summary of research conducted. . . . Of particular value is the enormous scope of the review of literature and the work of others, not only in Canada but also the United States, Australia, and Great Britain, underscoring the international nature of this transformation. What Howard H. Irving and Michael Benjamin have done is chart a major shift in the handling of conflict and they have done it very well." --Family and Conciliation Courts Review "Howard H. Irving and Michael Benjamin have surveyed and summarized an immense amount of material within the covers of this volume, presenting it in a clear, readable style. It is one of the rare texts on mediation that does justice to the complexity of families generally and families in North America particularly--to their diversity of culture, to the scope of feminist thought and gender differences, and to the ranges of social class. Their attention to divergent forms of mediation and differences in practice across jurisdictions is broadly sighted. An excellent choice for a text in mediation." --Mary A. Duryee, Family Court Services, Alameda County, Oakland, CA "Howard H. Irving and Michael Benjamin grapple with what is the most difficult event that confronts almost half of all modern families--divorce. Historically, the developmental issues and problems surrounding divorce have been solved in the courts. But modern-day courts are overwhelmed by an avalanche of divorce cases, more than a million a year, and are unable to meet the needs of separating parties. Family Mediation offers a fundamentally different approach from the conventional legal system. The empirical research and clinical experience Irving and Benjamin bring to bear on this subject have resulted in the seminal work in this area. This delightful and thoughtful book is a must for the modern mediation practitioner who works with families and children." --Duncan Lindsey, Professor, UCLA, and Editor-in-Chief, Children and Youth Services Review "This book is unique in providing a complete overview of relevant subject areas for family mediation under one cover. Its writing is timely because it dispels some of the myths in the rapidly expanding field of family mediation. . . . Family Mediation is a comprehensive text that follows the development of family mediation through the present and concludes with the predictors of future directions. It is perhaps the most thorough critical review of the literature pertaining to family mediation and develops an inclusive practical model of practice for practitioners. The book is readable . . . responsible, and of interest to family mediators and the family law lawyers who work closely with them. It may become a must as a background for the novice family mediator about to embark on a course of training." --Laurel Pearson, McWhinney, Metcalfe, and Associates, Toronto, Canada

In the course of their daily practice, counsellors in a wide variety of caring agencies often need to assist families in dealing with the problems they face. Eddy Street defines successful family counselling as a combination of a number of elements. He argues that it should: be in keeping with a family's strengths and style; offer empathic listening to each family member; maintain a perspective of the changing nature of family life; focus on clear and open communication; and deal in a problem-solving manner with the task in hand. He takes the reader step-by-step through these elements, outlining the necessary skills, and provides a clear understanding of the processes families have to go through in order to deal with the tasks that are set for them.

The United States is engaged in a critically important and contentious debate on how to overhaul the way it delivers and pays for long-term care. Most families that are confronted with caring for a disabled elderly relative are often guaranteed financial catastrophe. The authors of this book examine a wide range of financing approaches to reforming long-term care and the impacts they would have over the next twenty-five years. The central issues in the debate about reforming long-term care concerns the relative roles of the public and private sectors. The authors urge that private insurance be encouraged and predict it will grow. Nevertheless, they conclude, private insurance will probably play only a modest role in financing nursing home and at-home care. For that reason, careful attention must also be given to reforming public programs. They recommend a strategy that includes expanded social insurance covering more at-home care and some limited nursing home coverage, the liberalization of Medicaid eligibility requirements so that complete impoverishment is not required before benefits are given, and an enhanced role for private insurance to provide asset protection to the upper-middle- income and wealthy elderly. The authors examine the cost of public and private initiatives and who would pay for them. Their answers emerge from a large computer simulation model that the authors developed. This book is accessible to non-specialists and is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of American health care.

In this book a blue-ribbon group of practitioners, researchers, and policymakers provide an overview of the numerous programs that have emerged in the past decade in response to the changing needs of families. Addressing the historical and social context of current family support efforts, the range and variety of the programs, available research, and the challenges of funding, staffing, and managing them, it chronicles past problems and accomplishments and offers specific recommendations for the future. "A timely and important book."-T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. "This remarkable volume surveys a multitude of services available to support the increasingly beleaguered family; the focus is on local services, in the context of organizations and outside them. the book's emphasis on available services makes it a key resource for health professionals, but its aim is broader-to foster advocacy of change in organizational and governmental policies."-Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

Looking back at images of violence in the popular culture of early modern England, we find that the specter of the murderer loomed most vividly not in the stranger, but in the familiar; and not in the master, husband, or father, but in the servant, wife, or mother. A gripping exploration of seventeenth-century accounts of domestic murder in fact and fiction, this book is the first to ask why.Frances E. Dolan examines stories ranging from the profoundly disturbing to the comically macabre: of husband murder, wife murder, infanticide, and witchcraft. She surveys trial transcripts, confessions, and scaffold speeches, as well as pamphlets, ballads, popular plays based on notorious crimes, and such well-known works as The Tempest, Othello, Macbeth, and The Winter's Tale. Citing contemporary analogies between the politics of household and commonwealth, she shows how both legal and literary narratives attempt to restore the order threatened by insubordinate dependents.

This moving book reshapes our understanding of the nature of woman abuse and makes a major contribution to a key issue for feminist campaigning and theory. The past 25 years of research on `battered' women has focused on the psychological, sociological and political conditions which contribute to violence, and on women's reasons for staying with violent and abusive partners. The author goes beyond the discourse of `victims' and `survivors' to offer new insights into the very specific and multifaceted nature of the abuses women experience - emotional as well as physical. Drawing on firsthand accounts, Kirkwood sheds new light both on the dynamics of abuse which afford abusers control over women and the resources and knowledge women draw upon to re-empower themselves. Examining first the nature of abuse and then the issues confronted by a woman after she has left an abusive relationship, Kirkwood finds that women's experiences of society after leaving abusive partners are highly interrelated. She develops the concept of a `web' to explain how the different elements of abuse connect to make up the experiences of abused women.

Published in cooperation with the Center for Practice Innovations, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University Increased life expectancy, the deinstitutionalization of persons with mental illness, the rise of home health care, and advances in medical technology have resulted in greater numbers of dependent people requiring care by family members. The frail elderly, the chronically mentally ill, and the physically disabled are examples of such groups who now receive their daily care in the community. How do families accept the burden of this care? What are the physical and emotional demands of such caregiving? Are the families prepared to assume this role? Family Caregiving Across the Lifespan considers the broad spectrum of chronic illnesses that necessitate family caregiving throughout the lifespan and expands the caregiving paradigm by including in its focus both members of the caregiving dyad and significant non-family caregivers. It also explores the social context in which care is provided--an entire section of the volume is devoted to discussions of the interface between informal and formal caregivers and society at large. Among the other subjects this volume addresses are the negative consequences of family caregiving, the value of providing support to caregivers, and caregivers of persons living with AIDS. Family Caregiving Across the Lifespan is important reading for those in social work, nursing, family medicine, and clinical psychology. "Family Caregiving Across the Lifespan represents a significant milestone in the continuing maturation of this vital area of long-term care. The title is an understatement of the authors' accomplishments. . . .Rather than offering narrow boxes or labels, the book invites the reader to join in a broadened perspective on caregiving so that it can more fully reflect the richness of the lives of all involved. . . .For those who encounter Family Caregiving Across the Lifespan as part of their continuing study of caregiving, the book provides the integrating milestone of caregiving literature." --Journal of Case Management "This volume is a useful compendium of articles on family caregiving. The fourteen chapters in this volume address many important topics in family caregiving. One of the book's major contributions is its clarification that family caregiving to frail or chronically ill people has no age limitation, although there are unique issues at different points in the development of individuals and families. The book has exceptional merit. It expands our understanding of family caregiving, provides important ideas for future research, offers research findings that enhance our understanding of family care, and presents a very useful review of the literature. This book would be a beneficial addition to the library of all researchers in the area of caregiving. They will discover worthwhile conceptualizations and gain new insights that can inform their research. Practitioners should also benefit from this collection. The chapters addressing interaction between forma land informal caregivers should give practitioners a deeper understanding of how to be more effective in dealing with informal caregivers and care recipients." -Ageing & Society "One paper [in this volume] deserves particular notice because it attempts to do what many of the authors feel is most critical in caregiving research but also most difficult, namely, to analyze the effectiveness of caregiving, the effect of provision of care on elder health outcomes. This is an important and original conceptualization of the problem..." -Steven M. Albert, Contemporary Gerontology "This book is both unique and valuable because it embraces Brody's observation that family caregiving is not limited to a specific segment of the life span. Moreover, the book is not limited to filial caregiving, but entertains an impressive variety of contexts of family caregiving. . . . This book will be a valuable text in graduate-level courses." --Journal of Marriage and the Family

Looking back at images of violence in the popular culture of early modern England, we find that the specter of the murderer loomed most vividly not in the stranger, but in the familiar; and not in the master, husband, or father, but in the servant, wife, or mother. A gripping exploration of seventeenth-century accounts of domestic murder in fact and fiction, this book is the first to ask why.Frances E. Dolan examines stories ranging from the profoundly disturbing to the comically macabre: of husband murder, wife murder, infanticide, and witchcraft. She surveys trial transcripts, confessions, and scaffold speeches, as well as pamphlets, ballads, popular plays based on notorious crimes, and such well-known works as The Tempest, Othello, Macbeth, and The Winter's Tale. Citing contemporary analogies between the politics of household and commonwealth, she shows how both legal and literary narratives attempt to restore the order threatened by insubordinate dependents.

Scholarly yet readable, this second volume examines the major content areas where family life education is practiced: marriage enrichment, parent education, sex education, and aging, among others. In each section, the authors offer a critical and succinct introduction to the subject area, provide literature sources, and discuss current educational practices. They also address issues of age, gender, and ethnicity. In addition, the authors identify areas where further work needs to be done and offer suggestions for new directions, thus assisting program developers and leaders in the improvement of their practice.

The study of family stress has been dominated by the ABC-X model developed over several decades by Rueben Hill and other researchers. Now, the distinguished authors of this volume, along with a group of their colleagues and students, reexamine the theoretical literature in search of a better way of understanding stress and its management in families. They liberate their inquiry by setting aside traditional positivist notions in favor of a systematic paradigm--one that allows them to view stress as a multifaceted phenomenon with multiple causes and coping strategies. Then, using a series of qualitative and quantitative studies of different families in stress, they outline the various patterns of family responses to stress, the elements of the family system impacted by stressful events, and the helpfulness and harmfulness of management strategies in different families. The research and theory found in Reexamining Family Stress--and its implications for practitioners--is an important step forward in our understanding and dealing with families experiencing stress. "In Reexamining Family Stress, authors Wesley R. Burr, Shirly R. Klein, and associates present a systemic model of family stress that moves sharply away from the popular, positivist ABC-X models. Within this presentation, the authors include a comprehensive discussion of the theory upon which they build their model and of the outcome research they completed to answer the unique questions that emerged in the model's development." --Journal of Family Therapy "In Reexamining Family Stress, Wesley R. Burr, Shirley R. Klein, and associates offer the field a fresh perspective to family stress theory. Their book builds on the earlier theory building efforts by Robert Burr, using a systemic approach, and tests this refined theoretical approach with an empirical study. . . . The book makes a unique contribution to the family stress field." --Journal of Marriage and the Family "Highly recommended to professionals and students in the fields of health promotion, social work, and family and mental health in all settings (work, religious, community, provider, etc.). With a growing concern about the health of the family amidst the sea of potential family and societal stressors, this book offers many excellent insights and perspectives, and well-documented recommendations on some of the most effective coping strategies. Many of these strategies can be developed, nurtured, and strengthened throughout life allowing all members of the family to be better prepared when family (or life) stressors are encountered. Even if stressors are minimal, many of these same strategies are good for building strong, thriving families and individuals. This is a book well worth the reading!" --American Journal of Health Promotion

This moving book reshapes our understanding of the nature of woman abuse and makes a major contribution to a key issue for feminist campaigning and theory. The past 25 years of research on `battered' women has focused on the psychological, sociological and political conditions which contribute to violence, and on women's reasons for staying with violent and abusive partners. The author goes beyond the discourse of `victims' and `survivors' to offer new insights into the very specific and multifaceted nature of the abuses women experience - emotional as well as physical. Drawing on firsthand accounts, Kirkwood sheds new light both on the dynamics of abuse which afford abusers control over women and the resources and knowledge women draw upon to re-empower themselves. Examining first the nature of abuse and then the issues confronted by a woman after she has left an abusive relationship, Kirkwood finds that women's experiences of society after leaving abusive partners are highly interrelated. She develops the concept of a `web' to explain how the different elements of abuse connect to make up the experiences of abused women.

In this timely contribution to the debates on citizenship, Elizabeth Meehan provides an incisive analysis of the meaning of citizenship, and the links between civil, political and social citizenship.

The book provides a clear account of the development of social rights within the European community in three key areas: social security and assistance; participation by workers in the undertakings in which they are employed; and the equal treatment of men and women. The author critically assesses the extent to which inequalities of class, gender and ethnicity are successfully addressed by community social policies.

What is the state of the American welfare state? After half a century of growth and development, social welfare programs came under attack during the 1980s, generating widespread uncertainty about their future. Yet the welfare state weathered the assault. Cook and Barrett argue that social welfare in America is firmly rooted and that the American welfare state is here to stay. They attribute this to a strong reservoir of support on the part of both policymakers and the general public.

"Support for the American Welfare State" asks how much support there is, who is most supportive, and why there are differences in levels of support. The authors report the results of a survey of attitudes of both the general public and members of the U.S. House of Representatives about Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Unemployment Compensation-seven of the largest programs in the American welfare state.

While many people outside India find the images, sounds, and practices of Indian performing arts compelling and endeavor to incorporate them into the "global" repertoire, few are aware of the central role of religious belief and practice in Indian aesthetics. Completing the trilogy that includes Darsan: Seeing the Divine and Mantra: Hearing the Divine in India and America, this volume focuses on how rasa has been applied in a range of Indian performance traditions."Rasa" is taste, essence, flavor. How is it possible that a word used to describe a delicious masala can also be used to critique a Bharata Natyam performance? Rasa expresses the primary goals of performing arts in India in all the major literary, philosophical, and aesthetic texts, and it provides the cornerstone of the oral traditions of transmission. It is also essential to the study and production of sculpture, architecture, and painting. Yet its primary referent is cuisine. This book articulates the religious sensibility underlying the traditional performing arts as well as other applications of rasa and examines the relationships between the arts and religion in India today.

By offering a comparative, institutional analysis of how state-supported pensions for the elderly developed in Britain, Canada and the United States, Anna Shola Orloff aims to make a contribution to understanding the growth of modern social welfare policies. It is not enough, Orloff demonstrates, to simply examine socioeconomic factors in the growth of the welfare state. She argues that welfare policies are also shaped by the political institutions and processes that are the legacy of state formation and expansion in particular nations. Orloff explains why, when and how poor relief was replaced by modern social insurance legislation and pensions for the elderly in the first three decades of the 20th century. She analyses the long-term social and political transformation that laid the basis for modern social politics: the spread of waged work, the development of new liberal ideologies and the expansion and transformation of state administrative capacities. Combining original historical research with the analysis of secondary sources, Orloff's work is an example of the use of comparative and historical methods in answering questions about macropolitical transformation, such as the origin of the welfare state. ""The Politics of Pensions"" outlines an original, interdisciplinary approach that should appeal to a wide variety of readers: political sociologists interested in the state, social workers and specialists in old age policy, and comparative researchers of all disciplines engaged in research on the welfare state.

Battering and Family Therapy challenges traditional intervention by family therapists in treating family violence. Experts in specific legal, ethical, and practical areas propose alternative approaches to the treatment of wife battering from a feminist psychological perspective. Intended to educate therapists, it addresses key issues, including the psychological state of women who remain in violent relationships and current laws governing family violence. Specific guidelines for individual work with battering victims are presented. Suggested replacements are provided for the traditional family systems approach to abusive relationships, focusing on co-responsibility--a method that tends to make the victim responsible for her own predicament. It also considers training family therapists to recognize family violence, multi-ethnic perspectives on battering, and the impact of abusive marital relationships on children. Therapists, counselors, social workers, and psychologists--in practice and in training--will discover much of value in this edited volume. "This edited collection is an ambitious consideration of the three `Fs': family violence, family therapy, and feminist thinking. . . . This is an excellent introduction to the major issues in the treatment of wife abuse and should be required reading in training programs for therapists." --Mary J. Coe, The American Journal of Family Therapy "The content of the book, Battering and Family Therapy, is far more extensive than the title suggests. The book addresses various psychological and legal topics related to violence against women. Chapters pertaining to legal or ethical issues provide an essential perspective in understanding domestic violence. . . . Overall, this volume provides an excellent collection of chapters addressing a broad range of topics related to domestic violence for which the title is, unfortunately, misleading. This book should be recommended to professionals and graduate students alike." --Mary Ann Dutton, Nova University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida "This is a crucial book for family therapy. The bombshell among its many valuable chapters is the report of the editors' own research with therapists--a sample of 405 APA members and one of 362 AAMFT members who, faced with a case study of wife battering, were almost entirely unable to take the violence seriously and come up with interventions that would lead to safety for the woman, even when told "the case was one of domestic violence with a lethal outcome." This book helps us unlearn what we think we know. . . . The book contains excellent practical guidelines for treatment. . . . I hope, as the editors recommend, this information becomes part of the essential knowledge base for all therapists." --Journal of Family Psychotherapy "This book is about 3 Fs: family violence, family therapy, and feminist thinking. . . . Contributors offer useful suggestions for obtaining relevant information about ongoing violence without involving the victim in the treatment of the batterer in ways that could make her vulnerable to retaliation. . . . For me, the most troubling material in the volume were the data on current practice standards for violent families as reflected by surveys of family counselors and psychotherapists. These data suggested to me that the concern of medical educators to include domestic violence in their curriculum should be likewise extended to the other helping professions." --from the foreword by Mary P. Koss, University of Arizona, Tucson "Hansen and Harway have succeeded in putting together a comprehensive volume on battering and family therapy. The descriptive and analytical material in this book rivets attention on the seriousness of the complex issues being discussed. A gripping volume, which presents the legal as well as the psychological dynamics and considerations, approaches battering and violence from the vantage point of the individuals involved, from the marital dyad's perspective, from the intergenerational backdrop of the family of origin, and with a kaleidoscopic overview of the larger social context. It highlights the difficulties of treating batterers and their victims and points up directions for strategies geared to changing individual behaviors as well as the social milieu which gives rise to violent behaviors." --Florence W. Kaslow, Director, Florida Couples and Family Institute, West Palm Beach "The publication of Marsali Hansen and Michele Harway's edited volume, Battering and Family Therapy: A Feminist Perspective, could not be more timely. . . . This volume will undoubtedly be regarded as an important contribution to ongoing debates. Battering and Family Therapy does a good job of providing an overview of recent research on family violence, feminist analysis of the problem, current critiques of conjoint treatment, and implications for therapeutic practice. . . . It should be on the shelf of all practicing clinicians who come into contact with domestic violence because of its rich references and practical advice." --Violence Update "Highly recommended." --Family Violence & Sexual Assault Bulletin Book Club

Clinicians, social service providers, and professionals in associated fields often face issues related to diverse family structures--particularly the one-parent family. Unfortunately, current family-centered literature does not devote a great deal of space to intervention and assessment of these families who now comprise a quarter of all families. In Single-Parent Families, special treatment methods for single-parent families based on such factors as gender of the head of household, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation are discussed. The authors devote special attention to interventions with mother-headed households--nearly 90 percent of single-parent families are managed by women today--and emphasize the importance of social policies and services that help single parents meet the challenging dual roles of caregiving and wage earning. Clearly written and gender sensitive, Single-Parent Families provides concrete, practical suggestions on how to better empower single parents to obtain the resources they need to attain their aspirations and gain control over their environment. Both professionals and students of social services, counseling, psychology, family studies, and gender studies will find this volume informative, helpful, and above all, useful. ""The book is an excellent addition to literature on family-centered practice. It is written in a clear and concise manner, with helpful topical headings. . . . Highly recommended for students and practitioners in social work, counseling, and other related disciplines." --Choice "Kissman and Allen have created a brief book rich with insight into the complexities of single-parent family life. . . . This book is written by and primarily for practitioners working in a therapeutic setting with single-parent families. However, the perspective presented by this book could well be important and appreciated by family life educators, researchers, and other non-clinical professionals interested in single-parent families." --Family Relations

The breakdown of the family has been blamed for many of today's societal ills. Are there effective ways to support a family with problems (neglect, substance abuse, terminal illness, etc.), prevent its break up, and make a positive change? How effective has the Intensive Family Preservation Services (IFPS) been at solving these kinds of family problems and situations? What about families that don't respond to IFPS programs? Do the programs differ in their effectiveness? Through an exploration of these issues, knowledgeable contributors offer their own experiences as a basis for tracing the evolution of IFPS and of the advances that have been made in the field. Advancing Family Preservation Practice covers such topics as the evolution of family preservation and the theories that guide it, child protective services, clinician-support worker teams, and the relative effectiveness of family preservation services with neglectful families. Aimed at helping evaluators, practitioners, and administrators incorporate what has been discovered in IFPS practice, Advancing Family Preservation Practice is an important resource for those involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of family programs. "The issues [covered in Advancing Family Preservation Practice] are very relevant to the debates that are going on across the country among administrators, advocates, and legislators, as states are struggling to balance budgets with fewer federal dollars and skyrocketing costs for mandated health and social welfare programs. Support for "preventive services" will only continue to be available if these programs can be shown to be both successful in preventing family dissolution and cost-effective. Advancing Family Preservation Practice provides the most extensive documentation to date on potential program benefits of intensive family preservation services using program descriptions and research findings from established practice centers across the country. Policymakers and practitioners need to read this book. Faced with the task of providing a safe alternative to foster care for children who have been abused or neglected, the material compiled in this text is essential to a realistic assessment of potential outcomes for children and families at high risk." --Linda Heisner, Director Office of Family & Children's Services, Maryland Department of Human Resources, Baltimore "This is a scholarly, down-to-earth book for all those who serve children and their parents. Bold, imaginative and practical, this volume crosses those disciplinary lines that separate social work, medicine, nursing, psychology, law, and education; and it captures how paraprofessionals function as supervised "experts" in transmitting the hands-on knowledge from all these disciplines into front-line, state-of-the-art, home-centered services for children at risk of losing their parents and their vitality. This book is a vital resource because it packs hard-earned empirical knowledge into an upward spiral of rediscovering and innovating community-based, home-centered services for disadvantaged children and their parents; and for those dedicated adults who have the competence and the passion to serve them." --Albert J. Solnit, M.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus, Yale University and Commissioner, Department of Mental Health, Connecticut

What is the state of the American welfare state? After half a century of growth and development, social welfare programs came under attack during the 1980s, generating widespread uncertainty about their future. Yet the welfare state weathered the assault. Cook and Barrett argue that social welfare in America is firmly rooted and that the American welfare state is here to stay. They attribute this to a strong reservoir of support on the part of both policymakers and the general public.

"Support for the American Welfare State" asks how much support there is, who is most supportive, and why there are differences in levels of support. The authors report the results of a survey of attitudes of both the general public and members of the U.S. House of Representatives about Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Unemployment Compensation-seven of the largest programs in the American welfare state.

What happens when you include the family in the delivery of primary care? Do patients rehabilitate faster? How are prevention, treatment, and diagnosis affected? In Family Health Care, an interdisciplinary group of scholars addresses these questions and provides insight into the awakening interest in family-oriented care. This timely volume shows how recent changes in family life challenge traditional approaches to family-oriented care, examines models for training physicians to "think family," presents exemplars of family-oriented care, and provides models for intervention in applying family practice. The contributors also furnish an overview of research on family health care and discuss future directions in the methodology of family-oriented health care. Family Health Care is destined to become an indispensable resource for teachers and academics in family medicine and nursing, as well as specialists working in the field including social workers, psychologists, family therapists, and family/health care researchers. "It is a valuable book because it makes both theory and practice very accessible even to the reader who may not previously have considered these issues in any depth." --Health and Social Care "This text is well referenced with a helpful index. It provides a concise overview of relevant family systems theory, methodology, and approaches toward family therapy and research. The dialogue is thought provoking and, at times, controversial. . . . This book contributes importantly to one of the most critical issues in family medicine affecting our conceptual foundation, our self-perception, and our future."

What happens when you include the family in the delivery of primary care? Do patients rehabilitate faster? How are prevention, treatment, and diagnosis affected? In Family Health Care, an interdisciplinary group of scholars addresses these questions and provides insight into the awakening interest in family-oriented care. This timely volume shows how recent changes in family life challenge traditional approaches to family-oriented care, examines models for training physicians to "think family," presents exemplars of family-oriented care, and provides models for intervention in applying family practice. The contributors also furnish an overview of research on family health care and discuss future directions in the methodology of family-oriented health care. Family Health Care is destined to become an indispensable resource for teachers and academics in family medicine and nursing, as well as specialists working in the field including social workers, psychologists, family therapists, and family/health care researchers. "It is a valuable book because it makes both theory and practice very accessible even to the reader who may not previously have considered these issues in any depth." --Health and Social Care "This text is well referenced with a helpful index. It provides a concise overview of relevant family systems theory, methodology, and approaches toward family therapy and research. The dialogue is thought provoking and, at times, controversial. . . . This book contributes importantly to one of the most critical issues in family medicine affecting our conceptual foundation, our self-perception, and our future."

In a unique comparative ethnography of two family therapy programs, Gubrium deftly shows how differing organizational perceptions make visible the social construction of domestic disorder. Contrasting images of home life--one viewing domestic order as a system of authority, the other as a configuration of emotional bonds--serve to highlight different senses of the family as being out of control and to recommend alternate forms of intervention. The idea that the reality of home life and domestic troubles are embedded in organizational activities and institutional images is an important commentary on the understanding of domestic life and the postmodern family. Out of Control provides stimulating reading for professionals and students in clinical psychology, family therapy, family studies, sociology, and qualitative methods.

In a unique comparative ethnography of two family therapy programs, Gubrium deftly shows how differing organizational perceptions make visible the social construction of domestic disorder. Contrasting images of home life--one viewing domestic order as a system of authority, the other as a configuration of emotional bonds--serve to highlight different senses of the family as being out of control and to recommend alternate forms of intervention. The idea that the reality of home life and domestic troubles are embedded in organizational activities and institutional images is an important commentary on the understanding of domestic life and the postmodern family. Out of Control provides stimulating reading for professionals and students in clinical psychology, family therapy, family studies, sociology, and qualitative methods.

This book addresses the concept of need and how needs can be, and are, met in western societies. Different models of welfare provision are examined both in theoretical terms and through two case studies: of models of pension provision and of the connection between the satisfaction of needs and electoral success for governments. This timely study makes an important contribution to the understanding of welfare and politics in advanced industrial western states.

This book addresses the concept of need and how needs can be, and are, met in western societies. Different models of welfare provision are examined both in theoretical terms and through two case studies: of models of pension provision and of the connection between the satisfaction of needs and electoral success for governments. This timely study makes an important contribution to the understanding of welfare and politics in advanced industrial western states.