How does one define the concept of "family"? Is it primarily a biological link, or purely a social construction? Can it be a combination of both? Does it have to be? In this age of single parents, alternative lifestyles, and joint custody, "family" has become a fluid term which reflects a sweeping change in society -- from the rigid structure of the nuclear family to a more diverse and inclusive circle of people that one refers to as Òfamily.Ó In this revision of their classic work in family therapy issues and techniques, the authors propose Òa new and more comprehensive way to think about human development and the life cycle,Ó by widening the perspective of family therapy to include diversity of family forms and lifestyles, as well as cultural diversity. Their expanded view of family includes the impact and issues at multiple levels of the human system: the individual, family households, the extended family, the community, the cultural group, and the larger society. The new edition offers lively and dynamic writing, with contributed chapters by some of the best-known therapists and experts in family therapy. Some issues with expanded focus include race, class, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, spirituality, politics, work, time, community, values, and belief systems. Social workers, psychologists, nurses, and family therapists.
Monica McGoldrick, M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D., is co-founder and director of the Multicultural Family Institute in Highland Park, New Jersey, and adjunct faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Her books include Ethnicity and Family Therapy, Third Edition, Genograms: Assessment and Intervention, Third Edition, The Expanded Family Life Cycle, Fourth Edition Living Beyond Loss, 2nd edition; Revisioning Family Therapy, 2nd edition; and The Genogram Journey, a new edition of You Can Go Home Again, a book published to explain family systems therapy for the general reader. This book offers the genograms and family histories of many famous people from Barack Obama to John Kennedy and Sigmund Freud.
Monica McGoldrick was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there and in Solebury Pennsylvania. Her ancestors (on the McGoldrick side came from Donegal, Ireland, and her mother's Cahalane ancestors came from West Cork. She majored in Russian Studies at Brown University (called Pembroke in her time), and then received a masters degree in Russian Studies at Yale University, before switching to social work and family therapy, receiving her MSW and later an honorary PhD from Smith College School for Social Work.
