The conditions that allowed early MFTs the freedom to creatively explore different interventions and theories of change are no longer available in today’s mental health care system. Although there are many benefits to the structure of managed behavioral healthcare organizations, a thorough review of the literature demonstrates that many therapists working in managed care agencies struggle with maintaining their theoretical creativity, claiming third-party payers’ service requirements and paperwork a barrier to their creativity. A phenomenological transcendental research method was utilized to understand the phenomenon of successfully combining creativity and accountability in the practice of marriage and family therapy from the perspective of six creative MFTs who have effectively incorporated creative therapeutic techniques into their work, while adhering to the structured requirements of managed care. The findings and themes of the study were organized into two categories. The themes in the Textural / Content Category (description and purpose of therapeutic creativity at a managed care agency) are: (1) Creatively combining the needs of the clients, the different professional entities, insurance companies and you as a therapist, (2) Translating post-modern information into the medical model language that meets the third-party payers’ requirements, (3) Completing documentation with clients, (4) Incorporating technique from a range of therapy models, (5) Keeping clients engaged through a variety of resources and activities, and (6) Utilizing metaphors and themes to uncover patterns of relational dynamics and behaviors. The themes in the Structural / Supportive Conditions Category (factors that allow the balance of creativity and accountability to occur) are: (1) Systemic understanding of how the therapeutic and business systems of managed behavioral healthcare interact together, (2) Having a supportive network of colleagues, (2a) Supportive group of coworkers within the job setting, (2b) Supportive network of MFT colleagues outside of the work setting, (3) Desire to make a difference in peoples’ lives, (4) Continuous education on all aspects of the mental health field, (5) Employers’ support of creative therapy, (6) Self-reflection, (7) Self-care, and (8) Organization and time management.

A lack of credible evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of play therapy and the use of therapeutic board game in play therapy exists (Phillips, 2010; Matorin, 1996). Parent involvement is a key variable in the effectiveness of play therapy (Kottman, Stother, and Deniger, 2001). Formative research was used in this study to evaluate of The Super Family Board Game™ (SFBG) in order to develop an effective therapeutic board game aimed at enhancing family cooperation and cohesion. As the first formative evaluation of a therapeutic board game, this study provides future research implications for developing and testing therapeutic board games.

Master of Science / Family Studies and Human Services / Sandra M. Stith / The purpose of this thesis is to learn from human trafficking survivors about how service providers can better help female victims of human trafficking. The paper is guided by two theories, i.e., Attention Restoration Theory (Hartig, Evans, Jamner, Davis, & Galing, 2003) and The Holistic Process Theory of Healing (Ventegodt, Andersen, & Merrick, 2003). In this paper, I refer to the participants in my research as survivors and individuals who have been or currently are victims of human trafficking as victims. To utilize the common language used by the participants of this study, sex trafficking will be referred to as the “sex industry”. The purpose of the study was to gain the perspectives of women in the process of exiting from the sex industry to answer the overarching questions of how service providers can better help women who are on the path to restoration and recovery, as well as to help service providers better identify female victims and their needs. A combined approach of Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis and Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg and Bertsch’s (n.d.) Listening Guide was used to analyze the transcribed interviews for a better understanding of the narratives of the participants and the themes that emerged from their narratives.

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Book Summary:Ethics and Professional Issues in Couple and Family Therapy, Second Edition builds upon the strong foundations of the first edition. This new edition addresses the 2015 AAMFT Code of Ethics as well as other professional organizations’ codes of ethics, and includes three new chapters: one on in-home family therapy, a common method of providing therapy to clients, particularly those involved with child protective services; one chapter on HIPAA and HITECH Regulations that practicing therapists need to know; and one chapter on professional issues, in which topics such as advertising, professional identity, supervision, and research ethics are addressed. This book is intended as a training text for students studying to be marriage and family therapists.

This article reviews the presence of family theory in health-care research. First, we demonstrate some disconnect between models of the patient, which tend to focus on the individual, and a large body of research that finds that relationships influence health. We summarize the contributions of family science and medical family therapy and conclude that family science models and measures are generally underutilized. As a result, practitioners do not have access to the rich tool kit of lenses and interventions offered by systems thinking. We propose several possible ways that family scientists can contribute to health-care research, such as using the family as the unit of analysis, exploring theories of the family as they relate to health, and suggesting greater involvement of family scientists in health research.

The link between interparental conflict and adolescents’ maladjustment has been well established among European Americans; however, relatively few studies examine these relationships in Chinese societies. This study used longitudinal data from the Taiwan Youth Project (TYP), an on-going longitudinal panel research project focused on adolescent development, in order to examine the relationship between interparental conflict and depressive symptoms and externalizing problem behaviors of adolescents. In addition, this study examined parental warmth as a mediating variable for the relationship between interparental conflict and adolescents’ maladjustment. The results showed that interparental conflict predicted depressive symptoms among adolescents two years later. Mediation analysis indicated that parental warmth partially mediated the relationship between interparental conflict and depressive symptoms. However, findings indicated that there was no direct effect between interparental conflict and adolescent externalizing behaviors two years later; rather, the association was indirect through the mediating variable of overall parental warmth. Thus, overall parental warmth fully mediated the relationship between interparental conflict and subsequent externalizing behaviors. These results yield valuable information for clinical intervention and further research.

Family environment is a significant factor in the development of eating disorders in young-adult females. Clinical experience, research and theories about eating disorders indicate that constrictive implicit process rules within a family are correlated with eating-disordered families. This study identified implicit family process rules that are unique to eating-disordered families and how well these rules predict membership in eating-disordered and non-eating-disordered families. One hundred and two families (51 eating-disordered and 51 comparison families) participated in the study. Mothers, fathers, young-adult female children, and siblings in each family completed the Family Implicit Rules Profile (FIRP). The design included cluster analysis of all 85 rules to determine which implicit rules clustered in eating-disordered families, and discriminant analysis to determine how well the rules from the cluster analysis predicted membership in the groups of eating-disordered vs. control families. Results indicated that two clusters emerged related to eating-disordered families. The first included rules regarding inappropriate protection of parents (ex. "Protect your parent even if they do not deserve it"), not upsetting or inconveniencing parents, the triangulation of a child (eg.. "Listen to a parent when they complain about the other parent"), avoiding pain at any cost, and blaming self for others' anger. Cluster 2 included rules about appearances (eg,. "Do whatever you have to do to look good to others") and rules about keeping family matters private. Discriminant analysis showed that these 15 implicit family rules predicted membership in either the eating-disordered or the non-eating-disordered family groups with 93% accuracy. Implications for family therapy are discussed.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of responsibility inferences on judgments about helping older parents and stepparents with activities of daily living, health management, and recovery in the aftermath of an illness or injury. Using Weiner’s theory of responsibility inferences as a guiding framework, we evaluated (1) the amount of intergenerational aid adult (step)children should provide, (2) the extent to which adult (step)children were perceived to be obligated to help, (3) the extent to which government agencies should assist, and (4) attitudes about older adults’ responsibilities to help themselves. A sample of 252 adults was obtained using the Qualtrics online survey platform. Hypotheses derived from Weiner’s theory received support regarding responsibility inferences and perceptions about public assistance and personal responsibility to resolve problems. The theory was only partially supported, however, when examining intergenerational help to older kin, being at fault reduced expectations for providing help only under some conditions, and perceived obligations to kin were never affected by culpability.