Treating Contemporary Families

Linking research with clinical practice, this text shows therapists how to do evidence-based practice when treating contemporary families.

Today’s families are diverse and complex, and their problems do not always improve when treatment focuses on addressing a diagnosis. To achieve successful, lasting change, therapists must help families change their patterns of interaction.

This book examines several common interactional challenges that contemporary families face, such as co-parenting, divorce, intimate partner violence, blending families, and loss and bereavement. Contributors examine research on each challenge alongside research on various diverse family types, and offer targeted interventions for each family type.

With its strong emphasis on inclusion, social justice, and evidence-based practice, this book will help clinicians work with today’s diverse families in effective, empathic, and culturally responsive ways.

• 1. Our Approach to Inclusive Evidence-Based Practice with Contemporary Families
  Scott Browning and Brad van Eeden-Moorefield
• 2. Implications of Inclusion and Intersectionality for Clinical Practice
  Maya Autret and Brad van Eeden-Moorefield
• 3. Stress from Microaggressions and Discrimination: A Focus on Asian American, African American, Latina/o/x, and Queer Families
  Research: Lindsey Davis
  Clinical Applications: Claudia García-Leeds, Yiqing Youngman, Cheryll Rothery, and Erika Grafsky
• 4. Couple Instability: A Focus on Fragile Families, Stepfamilies, Families With a Child on the Autism Spectrum, and Multiracial Families
  Research: Francesca Adler-Baeder and Kim D. Gregson
  Clinical Applications: C. Wayne Jones, Patricia Papernow, Scott Browning, Kelley Kenney, and Mark Kenney
• 5. Intimate Partner Violence: A Focus on Queer Families, Families and Substance Use, and Military Couples
  Research: Autumn M. Bermea
  Clinical Applications: Peter Fraenkel, Kristen Benson, Camille St. James, and Matt Bowen
• 6. Co-Parenting: A Focus on Divorced Families, Stepfamilies, Intergenerational Families, and Families with a Child on the Autism Spectrum
  Research: Tamara D. Afifi, Alison Mazur, and Chris Otmar
  Clinical Applications: Amy Wagner, Patricia Papernow, Bindu Methikalam, and Bryan Peightal
• 7. Boundary Ambiguity: A Focus on Stepfamilies, Queer Families, Families with Adolescent Children, and Multigenerational Families
  Research: Marilyn Coleman and Lawrence Ganong
  Clinical Applications:  Salvatore D’Amore, Scott Browning, Dena DiNardo, and Bindu Methikalam
• 8. Ambiguous Loss: A Focus on Immigrant Families, Post Incarceration Family Life, Addiction and Families, and Military Families
  Research: Catherine Solheim and Anne Williams-Wengerd
  Clinical Applications: Chris Kodman-Jones, Kyle Burke, Camille St. James, Miguel Lewis and Michelle Sherman
• 9. Loss and Bereavement: A Focus on Cancer and Families, Death of a Parent, Death of a Young Child, and Sudden/Violent Death in Families
  Research: Jacquelyn J. Benson, Abigail J. Rolbiecki, and Tashel C. Bordere
  Clinical Applications: Cadmona A. Hall, Allie Abraham, Dena DiNardo, Marianne Celano, and Ileana Ungureanu
• 10. Emergent Areas of Clinical Practice in Need of Research: Hearing or Vision Loss in Families
  Susan McGroarty, Rachel Hull, and Chris Royer
• 11. Outcome Assessment in Family Therapy
  Charles Fishman, Angus Craig, Scott Browning, Rachel Hull, and Allison Rozovsky

Scott Browning, PhD, ABPP, teaches in the doctoral program at Chestnut Hill College, in Philadelphia.

Scott has published numerous books, chapters, and journal articles on topics ranging from stepfamilies, autism, empathy, paradox, the contemporary family, and intersectionality. Scott has been awarded the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, and he is the co-recipient of the 2017 Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Psychology.

Brad van Eeden-Moorefield, MSW, PhD, CFLE, is professor and associate department chair for social justice initiatives in the Department of Family Science and Human Development at Montclair State University.

He has authored multiple works in journals such as Journal of Family Psychology, Family Relations, Journal of Family Issues, and Sex Roles. Brad also guest-edited special issues on “Intersectional variations in the experiences of queer families” and “Transformative family scholarship: Theory, practice, and research at the intersection of families, race, and social justice.”