Contextual Family Therapy - 93 edition

Goldenthal, Peter :

Peter Goldenthal, PhD, has conducted numerous professional training workshops, seminars, and continuing education programs focused on contextual treatment with couples, children, and families under the auspices of the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and other professional groups. With over 14 years of experience as a family therapist, he is active in both the training and supervision of family therapists and serves as an approved supervisor for the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. Dr. Goldenthal received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut, interned at Worcester Youth Guidance Center, and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in psychology at Harvard Medical School. He has also held academic appointments at Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Delaware. Dr. Goldenthal has earned Diplomates in both Clinical Psychology and Family Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He is licensed as a psychologist in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. In addition to maintaining private practices in both King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware, he currently serves as Director of the Outpatient Unit and Family Study Center of The Terry Children's Psychiatric Center in New Castle, Delaware.

"This practical guide to a complex and sophisticated therapeutic method is clear, straightforward, and not oversimplified. The author, an experienced psychologist and family therapist, understands and appreciates the depth dimensions of contextual therapy, and has been able to explicate and elaborate the major procedural steps of assessment, treatment, and termination. Several clinical vignettes vividly demonstrate how the therapist intervenes - the 'how to do it' of contextual therapy, especially with families of young children and adolescents."

--Judith Grunebaum, LICSW, Executive Committee and Faculty, Couple and Family Center, Cambridge Hospital, Department of Psychiatry; Lecturer on Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Professional Resource Press Web Site, February, 2001

BACKGROUND

FOUR-DIMENSIONAL FRAMEWORK

The Existential Dimension
The Psychological Dimension
The Dimension of Transactions and Power
The Dimension of Fairness in Balancing Give and Take in Relationships
Distinctions Between Fairness and Other Dimensions

BASIC CONCEPTS OF FAIRNESS IN RELATIONSHIPS

The Right to Give

Joey: A Child's Right to Give to a "Abusive" Mother (Vignette #1)

An Intergenerational Perspective
Loyalty

Sheila and Robbie: Two Case Illustrations of Split Loyalty

Destructive Parentification
Therapeutic Leverage
Constructive Entitlement
Destructive Entitlement
Reliance on Constructive Versus Destructive Entitlement

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CONTEXTUAL ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION

How Assessment Issues Blend into Treatment Issues
Multidirected Partiality
Structuring Techniques
Some Practical Issues

Session Attendance and Participation

Privacy

Responses to Emergencies

Custody Evaluations

CONTEXTUAL ASSESSMENT

Sequence of Steps in Assessment
Assessing Psychological Factors
Assessing Individual and Family History
Assessing Family Transactions

Paul: A Scapegoated Child

Assessing Fairness Issues
Assessment of Injustice, Destructive Entitlement, and Parentification

Eunice: A Case of Injustice as the Result of Chronic Illness (Vignette #1)

Ricky: A Father's Destructive Entitlement Arising from a Serious Medical Condition (Vignette #1)

Sally: Parentification as the Result of a Parent's Reliance on Destructive Entitlement

Debbie: Injustice Leading to Reliance on Destructive Entitlement and Parentification (Vignette #2)

Mr. S: Parentification and Invisible Loyalty

INTERVENTION PROCEDURES

Assessing Fairness Issues Leads Directly to Intervention

The M Family: Initial Session

Anger and Disruptive Behaviors in Children

The M Family: Later Sessions

Roberta: Anger, Depression, and Substance Abuse in Adolescence

Multidirected Partiality Versus Impartiality

Kerry: Multidirected Partiality and Split Loyalty

The A Family: Partiality to Divorced Parents

The B Family: Multidirected Partiality in a Case of Parental Separation

The C Family: Severe Marital Discord and Split Loyalty

Uncovering Resources
Acknowledgment

Joseph: Acknowledgement of a Child's Giving to His Parent
Kevin: Multidirected Partiality and Acknowledgment of a Child's Concern for an Ill Parent
Bobby: Acknowledgment of Giving Between Siblings
Albert: Acknowledgment of Caretaking Behavior
Eunice: Acknowledgment of Unfairness (Vignette #2)

Giving Room

Jack: Giving Room in a Case of Subtle Parentification
The Funnel: A Model for Timing Interventions

Crediting

Debbie: Crediting Injustice (Vignette #2)
Ricky: Multidirected Partiality to a "Neglectful" Parent (Vignette #2)

Lending Weight
Exoneration

Ms. H: Partiality to a Grandparent

Helping Parents to Provide Their Children Opportunities to Give

SUMMARY
REFERENCES