Family therapy and urban poverty: Structural Family Therapy in context.

摘要

This study analyzes the history of family therapy's involvement with inner-city poor families. Specifically, it focuses on Structural Family Therapy, the only model of family therapy developed from work with and for a clearly identified impoverished clientele. Rather than focusing on the details of the clinical model of Structural Family Therapy, this study examines its relationship to the social context in which it originated and evolved. It seeks to account for how a family therapy model committed to practice with low income families arose in the late 1950s and early 1960s, became disconnected from poor families as it encountered both conflict and success in the 1970s and 1980s, and re-emerged as a source of revitalization for inner-city practice in the mid 1980s. The larger purpose of the study is to analyze how professional knowledge develops in a social and historical context, and thus to contribute to an understanding of the social construction of the professions.; The study is both exploratory and explanatory and uses qualitative and historical methods of research. It is exploratory in its efforts to achieve a deeper understanding of family therapy approaches to urban poor families from the point of view of a select group of successful practitioners. It is explanatory in its effort to examine the phases of a family therapy model committed to practice with low income families.; The study relied for data on intensive interviews and public records. Two groups of family therapists were interviewed, including: the original leaders and developers of the Structural Family Therapy model, and current practitioners who have articulated models of inner-city practice in published reports or at family therapy conferences. The study group included eight "leaders" and ten "current practitioners". Interviews relied on an interview guide to ensure relevance to the study questions. Leaders and current practitioners were asked about historical incentives and current rewards attracting them to inner-city practice, the constraints they encountered, and their perceptions about priorities for renewed attention to the problems of low income families. Leaders were asked about the transitional points in the development of the Structural Family Therapy model. Public records analyzed included biographical and autobiographical accounts of the leaders, public accounts of the agencies in which leaders and current practitioners work, and publications of the research informants.; The evolution of the Structural Family Therapy model was analyzed in relationship to three larger social movements: the development of family therapy in the context of public discourse about the well-being of American families; community mental health and community psychiatry; and changes in poverty policy. Three social theories were used to provide insight into the process of change, including: Structural/Functionalism, conflict theory, and social constructionism.