Family Therapy: History, Theory, And Practice

by Samuel T. Gladding

The fourth edition of Family History, Theory, and Practice is a comprehensive and developmental textbook. It covers all aspects of working with families. It begins by helping students understand the differences between functional and dysfunctional families. It then explains basic processes involved in treating couples and families before it delves into a dozen theoretical ways of treating families. This text covers the history of family therapy, multicultural aspects of family therapy, ways of working with various types of families, ethical and legal issues in involved in family therapy, and ways of assessing families. This is the most thorough and well written text in the field.

Genres: Counselling, Textbooks, Psychology, Nonfiction, School

514 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2006

About the author

Samuel Templeman Gladding

Reviews

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good textbook.

Nice comprehensive overview of the field including; systems theory, various modes of family and couples therapy, and research methodologies.

Clearly written, concise and organized.

Appropriate for MA and Doctoral level.

[Cass · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very whitewashed history. Research upholds the ideas, standards, and theories of the dominant white patriarchal society. History existed before colonization and should be included within the context of this book. There are more inclusive books on the market.

[Gina Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though this book is pretty text heavy, it is written in a manner that is easy to follow and understand. The summary and summary tables at the end of the chapter and very concise and informative. There is also an online component to this text.

[Fernanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apart from the horrid poems the author insisted in using in the beginning of each chapter, it's a great intro book in the subject.

[Paige Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I started by mostly reading the chapter summaries on this one, and even still I found typos and errors when I went back to the chapters to get more information. The inclusion of the chapter summaries is incredibly helpful as a student, and I’d encourage further editions of all of Gladding’s textbooks to have them (though, I’m sure this is not doable). It should be noted, however, that the summaries do not exactly contain all of the most pertinent information from the chapter, regularly excluding bolded terms and occasionally the most clear definitions and explanations. The result is that the summaries are insufficient for a great portion of the textbook. While much of the information is currently relevant, many of the resources—not just for the history sections—are decades and decades old, making the validity of some of the information questionable. A textbook is a colossal undertaking, but if we’ve seen anything in the last century of psychology and counseling, it is that information is ongoing, and development of the field is constant; old data is not helpful. Gladding’s work is consistently comprehensive and robust, but it has key flaws and/or errors that require its information to be taken with a grain of salt.

[Kafamdaki Makine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aile terapisiyle ilgili a’san Z’ye bütün yöntemleri içerisinde barındırıyor. Bu konuya ilgi duyanlara hem bir tarihçe hem de bir okul kitabı niteliğinde. Hangi yöntemin değerli olduğunu değil, yöntemleri tek tek anlatıyor. Çok sevdiğim bir kitap oldu. Temel kaynak olarak önerebileceğim bir eser. Evlilik önemli bir aile olgusu, evlenmek kolay ama bunları bilmeden yaparsan çok daha kolay. Kolay olan şeyler vasat olmaya mahkümdur.

[MK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive overview of family therapy, its populations, and associated theories. Still largely heteronormative and could use some development in the diversity aspect, which is true of almost everything in this field.

[Candace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for graduate program Counseling and Art Therapy.