Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Family Psychology

James H. Bray is Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Director of the Family Counseling Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He has published and presented numerous works in the areas of divorce, remarriage, adolescent substance use, intergenerational family relationships, and collaboration between physicians and psychologists. He was the principal investigator of the federally funded longitudinal study, Developmental Issues in Step Families Research Project. He is currently working on a federally funded project on alcohol and other drug abuse in families with adolescents, the Baylor Adolescent Alcohol Project. He is the 2009 President of the American Psychological Association.
Mark Stanton is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences at Azusa Pacific University, California. He is certified in Family Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology and a licensed psychologist in the state of California. He was President of the Society of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association in 2005, Editor of The Family Psychologist from 2002 to 2007, and awarded the Family Psychologist of the Year in 2007 by the Society of Family Psychology.

The Handbook of Family Psychology provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical underpinnings and established practices relating to family psychology.

• Provides a thorough orientation to the field of family psychology for clinicians

• Includes summaries of the most recent research literature and clinical interventions for specific areas of interest to family psychology clinicians

• Features essays by recognized experts in a variety of specialized fields

• Suitable as a required text for courses in family psychology, family therapy, theories of psychotherapy, couples therapy, systems theory, and systems therapy

Auteur

James H. Bray is Associate Professor in the Department of
Family and Community Medicine, Director of the Family Counseling
Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He has
published and presented numerous works in the areas of divorce,
remarriage, adolescent substance use, intergenerational family
relationships, and collaboration between physicians and
psychologists. He was the principal investigator of the federally
funded longitudinal study, Developmental Issues in Step Families
Research Project. He is currently working on a federally funded
project on alcohol and other drug abuse in families with
adolescents, the Baylor Adolescent Alcohol Project. He is the 2009
President of the American Psychological Association.

Mark Stanton is Professor of Psychology and Dean of
the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences at
Azusa Pacific University, California. He is certified in Family
Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology
and a licensed psychologist in the state of California. He was
President of the Society of Family Psychology of the American
Psychological Association in 2005, Editor of The Family
Psychologist from 2002 to 2007, and awarded the Family
Psychologist of the Year in 2007 by the Society of Family
Psychology.

Résumé

The Handbook of Family Psychology provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical underpinnings and established practices relating to family psychology.

• Provides a thorough orientation to the field of family psychology for clinicians
• Includes summaries of the most recent research literature and clinical interventions for specific areas of interest to family psychology clinicians
• Features essays by recognized experts in a variety of specialized fields
• Suitable as a required text for courses in family psychology, family therapy, theories of psychotherapy, couples therapy, systems theory, and systems therapy

Échantillon de lecture

1

The Systemic Epistemology of the Specialty of Family Psychology

Mark Stanton

Family psychology is a broad and general orientation to psychology that utilizes a systemic epistemology to provide an alternative to the individual focus of many psychological orientations (Nutt & Stanton, 2008). Although the specialty is sometimes confused with the practice of family therapy, family psychology is a broader term that recognizes that human behavior occurs within a contextual matrix of individual, interpersonal, and environ-mental or macrosystemic factors (Robbins, Mayorga, & Szapocznik, 2003; Stanton, 1999). A systemic epistemology includes systemic thinking (inculcation of systemic concepts and use of a systemic paradigm to organize thoughts) and application to clinical practice and research. A systemic epistemology provides a framework for the general conceptualization of human behavior and for psychological assessment, psychotherapeutic intervention, and family psychology research.

This chapter provides an introduction to the systemic epistemology of family psychology, including a definition of epistemology, the importance of an epistemological transforma-tion to shift from an individualistic approach to a systemic approach to psychology, the delineation of a family psychology paradigm, and a description of important systemic factors. Finally, this systemic epistemology is applied to psychotherapeutic intervention and family psychology research.
Definition of Epistemology

We use the term epistemology here in a manner consistent with the work of Auerswald and Bateson (Auerswald, 1990; Bateson, 1972): a set of pervasive rules used in thought by large groups of people to define reality. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that focuses on knowledge and the justification of knowledge by examining the origins, nature, and methods of knowledge. Understood more broadly, epistemology has "to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry" ( Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , n.d.). More simply stated it is "how we know what we know." Epistemology often involves creation and use of a paradigm to organize information and knowledge.

The crucial issue for family psychologists is the role of one's epistemology in determining the sources and organization of knowledge, as these constitute what we know and believe to be true. In that sense, "reality" is a construct, based on what our rules say is real or not real. For instance, is the sound of a dog whistle "real"? Most humans cannot hear the sound, so if our rules limit reality to those things that can be directly experienced by human senses (i.e., sight, hearing, touch, feel) in an anthropocentric manner, the sound of the dog whistle is not real. This is problematic, because we can observe that when we blow the whistle all the dogs in the area respond, and we have learned that there are high-frequency sounds beyond our auditory range, so our rules may be challenged by other experiences or knowledge. If so, do we change our rules, or do we hold to them stubbornly because we "know" they are right? Rules may preclude consideration of novel ideas or exclude options without deliberation because they do not fit our "reality."

Many people have given little thought to the rules they follow in thinking. Most do not face an ambiguous situation, stop, determine the rules we intend to use to conceptualize that situation, and then address it. Instead, we automatically follow the rules into which we have been socialized. Family psychology challenges us to understand how we have been socialized and educated to think, and to consider new methods.
The Cartesian Method

Many people educated in the United States and Europe have inculcated the scientific method espoused by Rene Descartes in 1637 (Capra, 2002; Nutt & Stanton, 2008). The Cartesian method of critic

Contenu

List of Contributors x

Preface xiv

**Part I. …