No matter how old we are, or how far from home, our family remains with us - we share their looks and gestures, social values and concept of "home". Yet we often fail to connect with family members, and in remarkable ways our early experiences with family are repeated with marriage partners and children. In this revelatory book, esteemed family therapist Monica McGoldrick explores why families behave as they do, using genograms (family trees) to illustrate family patterns. Mapped out over a three-generation span, repeated estrangements, alliances, even divorces and suicides prove more than coincidental. McGoldrick uses the genograms of famous families - including the Kennedys, Hepburns, Beethovens, Brontes, and the family of the Marx Brothers - to discuss the influence of birth order and sibling rivalry, family myths and secrets, cultural differences, couple relationships, and the pivotal role of loss. Relevant questions we can ask ourselves appear at the end of each chapter, helping the reader to become researcher, uncovering information previously withheld, misunderstood, or overlooked. There is a saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are recommended to repeat it". The message here is positive: once we reconnect with the past, McGoldrick tells us, we can choose our futures.

This classic Family Therapy text continues to provide "a new and more comprehensive way to think about human development and the life cycle," reflecting changes in society away from orientation toward the nuclear family, toward a more diverse and inclusive definition of "family." This expanded view of the family includes the impact of issues at multiple levels of the human system: the individual, family households, the extended family, the community, the cultural group, and the larger society. The text features a ground-breaking integration of individual male and female development in systemic context; our increasing racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity; the emergence of men's movements and issues; the growing visibility of lesbian and gay families; and the neglected area of social class.

Widely used by family therapists- and by health care professionals in general-the genogram is a graphic way of organising the mass of information gathered during a family assessment. This visual representation allows the practitioner to find patterns in the family system for more targeted treatment. Now in its fourth edition, Genograms has been fully updated by renowned therapist Monica McGoldrick. Expanded with four-colour images throughout, additional material explaining the use of genograms with siblings and couples, and a thorough updating to essential concepts, this edition provides a fascinating view into the richness of family dynamics. Informative, comprehensive, and beautifully written and illustrated, this book helps bring to life principles of family system theory and systemic interviewing, as well as walk readers through the basics of constructing a genogram, doing a genogram interview and interpreting the results.

A leading text for courses that go beyond the basics of family systems theory, intervention techniques, and diversity, this influential work has now been significantly revised with 65% new material. The volume explores how family relationships--and therapy itself--are profoundly shaped by race, social class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other intersecting dimensions of marginalization and privilege. Chapters from leading experts guide the practitioner to challenge assumptions about family health and pathology, understand the psychosocial impact of oppression, and tap into clients' cultural resources for healing. Practical clinical strategies are interwoven with theoretical insights, case examples, training ideas, and therapists' reflections on their own cultural and family legacies. New to This Edition *Existing chapters have been thoroughly updated and 21 chapters added, expanding the perspectives in the book. *Reflects over a decade of theoretical and clinical advances and the growing diversity of the United States. *New sections on re-visioning clinical research, trauma and psychological homelessness, and larger systems.

A companion to the celebrated text Genograms: Assessment & Intervention, this workbook will articulate exactly how to put genograms to use in therapy work. Issues surrounding client engagement, mastering resistance, detriangling, dealing with conflicts, and helping clients to repair cut-offs will all be addressed.

This widely used clinical reference has now been fully revised and expanded, providing the latest knowledge on culturally sensitive practice with families and individuals from over 40 different ethnic groups. Each chapter demonstrates how ethnocultural factors may influence the assumptions of both clients and therapists, the issues people bring to the clinical context, and their resources for coping and problem solving. Updated throughout with essential new material, the third edition includes chapters on several additional groups. An indispensable new appendix offers a concise guide to weaving cultural information into assessment and intervention planning.

The editors' clinical framework identifies variables that heighten risk for individual, couple, or family dysfunction and describes key processes that foster healing and growth. Chapters by leading authorities reveal how the family response to loss affects all members and their relationships across the life cycle and the generations. New chapters address such topics as spirituality, gender issues, suicide and other traumatic deaths, unacknowledged and stigmatized losses, and resilience-based approaches to family and community recovery from major disaster. In a completely new section, prominent family therapists offer poignant reflections on their own legacies of loss. Throughout Living Beyond Loss, Second Edition, readers will find valuable therapeutic guidelines for working with threatened loss and end-of-life dilemmas, the immediate aftermath of traumatic loss, and long-term complications. Case illustrations address a wide range of loss situations, show their ripple effects, and suggest ways to address hidden losses when other symptoms are presented. Therapists and counselors will find their own lives and practices deeply enriched by this new volume.

This comprehensive book, ideal as a basic text in family therapy and women's studies, addresses the question of how women experience family life from a variety of perspectives. It covers gender issues in family therapy theory, practice, and training; women in context (ethnicity and life cycle issues, marriage, motherhood, sisterhood, women alone, lesbian couples), and such special issues as work, addiction, and mental illness.