Table of Contents
Preface
1 Disturbing the Peace
“Can You Help Us?”
Looking for Leverage
Dialogue: Setting the System in Motion
It Must Be a Marital Problem
Linear versus Circular Causality
2 The Making of a Family Therapist
Behind the One-Way Mirror
3 Love’s Young Dream
“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine”
Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
“I Do”
4 The Progress of Love
“Why Are You so Mean to Me?”
Idealization
Accommodation
Boundaries
How to Succeed as a Couple by Really Trying
5 In-Laws
“Alone at Last”
Invaders from Another Planet
Accommodation and Boundary-Making with the In-Laws
Invisable Loyalties
Past Tense and Imperfect Future
6 The Depressed Young Mother
The Impossible Job
The Family Life Cycle
2 + 1 = 2
Heather’s Birth
The Young and the Restless
Renegotiating Boundaries with Grandparents
Reciprocity
Bitter Fruit
7 Why Can’t Jason Behave?
Fix my Child without Disturbing Me
Family Rules
Family Structure
The Strucural Model
Blueprint for a Healthy Family
Uncovering the Structure in a Family
Building Children’s Self-Esteem
8 The Overinvolved Mother and Peripheral Father
The need to Restructure the Family
Shared Parenting
The Best of Intentions
Pursuers and Distancers
Self-Defeating Cycles
9 Family Feud
Sibling Rivalry
Enmeshment
Disengagement
Brotherhood and Sisterhood
10 Loss of Innocence
To Tell or Not to Tell, That Is the Question
All Hell Breaks Loose
“Why, Why, Why?”
Moving On
11 Divorce, Remarriage, and Stepparenting
Families in Transition
Uncoupling
Reorganizing
Blending
12 Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Rebellious Teenager
That Awful, Awkward Age
“How Worried Should I Be about My Teenager?”
The Terrible Teens
13 The Salazars’ Family Therapy
Shifting Boundaries
All Together Again, and Out
14 Letting Go
“It’s the End of Our Family”
The Long Good-Bye
Boomerang Kids
“Under Certain Conditions”
Index
