Product Description
Why do some families survive stressful situations while others fall apart? Can a familys beliefs and values be used as a predictor of vulnerability to stress? And most importantly, can family stress be prevented? In this Second Edition, Pauline Boss continues to explore both the larger context surrounding families and stress and the inner context, which includes perceptions and meanings. The author emphasizes the need for a more general contextual model of family stress that may be applicable to a wider diversity of people and families as well as a wider variety of stresses and crises than other models. The goal is to provide a framework for students and professionals engaged in helping families learn how to manage their stress.
About the Author
Pauline Boss received her Ph.D. in Child Development and Family Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she subsequently taught for many years. In 1981, she joined the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, where she is now Professor and Clinical Supervisor in the doctoral training program in marriage and family therapy. She was appointed Visiting Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, 1995-96. Widely recognized for groundbreaking research she has conducted since 1973 on family stress and ambiguity, she summarized part of that work in Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Harvard University Press, 1999). Dr. Boss is a past-president of the National Council on Family Relations (where she also chaired the Research & Theory Section and the Theory Construction & Research Methods Workshop) and is a past-president of the Groves Conference on Marriage and the Family. She is also a member of the Council on Contemporary Families. Known as a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of family stress, she has worked to connect family science and sociology with family therapy and psychology. Her efforts were validated by her election as Fellow in three different professional organizations: the American Psychological Association, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (where she chaired the research committee), and the National Council on Family Relations. In addition, she has chaired the research committee of the American Family Therapy Academy and was appointed to serve on the Advisory Board of the Family Research Consortium III on Diversity, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Boss was a coeditor of the Sourcebook on Family Theories and Methods (Plenum, 1993).