Customer Reviews

Ethnicity and Family Therapy: Second Edition

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first read this book several years ago. I am a professional computer scientist/applied mathematician, and have no training at all in any social science aside from history, government and anthropology courses taken in college (lo these many years ago). My interest in this book arises from the illumination that its chapters on the English, the Irish, the Italians and the Jews (the main ethnic groups in the town in which I grew up) have given to otherwise inexplicable bits of my life. For example, I could never understand why one of my Yankee friends would go into paroxysms of anger when, after inviting his daughter to Sunday dinner, she would accept, and then call with a (legitimate) excuse on Saturday; or why one of my mother's best friends, a woman of Irish descent, drove me wild for over 40 years with her teasing manner, although she clearly meant very well towards me. The pathways of social and familial relationships passed from generation to generation through the filter of ethnic heritage appears to be remarkably powerful, even in these post-melting-pot days. Read this book with an eye to self-discovery if you don't believe me!

Finally a book that does not talk about race as a four color system. The book explores the cultural issues that face specific groups. I have used this book with my Polish, Dutch, Pilipino, Korean, French Canadian, Vietnamese, and Central American clients. I have been astounded how accurate, helpful, and insightful this research was in assisting me with my clinical work. The work covers the history of people and how it can affect people generations later through recurring patterns. This book is a great resource for those who want to learn about the vast number of cultures in America and how they are affecting by their culture, history, and family.

I love Monica McGoldrick's works!

This is an excellent book for anyone who, among other things, questions whether American models of mental health are universally applicable and need concrete examples of how different cultures experience and manifest psychiatric disorders. Has sections on many different cultures, not only the numerically largest or economically most powerful.

Ethnicity and Family Therapy is quite simply the best book that exists to any interested person as well as students and professionals with a good overview of important factors to understand when dealing with differences that exist in people.

I first became familiar with Monica McGoldrick about eighteen years ago. She has devoted her life's work to research and writing on the influences of ancestry and ethnicity in our contemporary lives. Every time I pick this book up (over the first and second editions), I find myself lost in it as if it is my first discovery of it and I always learn something new! A great book for a discussion group to consider.

This is one of the best psychology books I have ever read. Not only does it provide advice on how to treat people from certain cultures, it teaches the reader about the culture itself. This book is a marriage of cultural studies and psychology. While the book is large, the reader shouldn't be intimidated by its size. The book is broken up into several (50+) chapters and each chapter focuses on one culture. The book doesn't have to be read cover to cover. Each chapter is free standing.

I have been using this book and the earlier book in my practice for more than ten years. It has been vital to my work not only with other cultures, but my own (Irish)> I have often shared the readings with my clients who also found the chapters on their cultures to be acurate. If there was going to be one book on my shelf, this would be it. Got a copy to sell I would buy it as a back-up!

This book was suggested to me by one of my professor's who happens to teach a family counseling course. She suggested that we buy this book to use in our future practices. Since I have purchased the book, I have already referred to it twice. It is highly detailed and knowledgable. I was able to use if for a presentation and for a resource on a college exit exam. I highly recommend this book to those who seek further knowledge and information on various cultures. It reviews all nationalities and cultures that exist in today's society.

This is an extremely valuable and important resource for clinicians. It provides cultural overviews that can be used in clinical work and teaching. It is a wonderful desktop resource that can facilitate the essential process of cultural consideration in clinical work with families. Monica McGoldrick's writing is clear and enjoyable.

OK, this book wouldn't seem especially fun to read, and I'll admit that a counselor friend had to recommend it to me, but I find it simply fascinating. As I read through the chapters about my family's heritage, I really found it compelling that many of the the behaviors and values that I take for granted are not simply from my family, but are in large measure common to my ethnicity. Then, as I read about the heritage of my fiancee's family, it really put things into perspective for me. Behaviors that I might have found rude or offensive in my cultural framework have a perfectly natural, and honorable, root in thiers. If understanding is the key to acceptance, this book really helped me understand and communicate much better, and begin to accept and live within different cultures. This book gives an excellent framework to explain how different ethnicitys come to value different things. Highly recommended.

You just can't go wrong when Monica McGoldrick is editing the book! The individual sections and chapters are quite comprehensive and I have to say that I learned things about my parents that I had assumed were developmental personality characteristics and they turned out to be ethnic and cultural characteristics from their countries of origin. This one is a "keeper". I'll have it on my bookshelf for whenever I need to dip into it.