Part of the process of Domestic Abuse/Child Abuse Recovery is receiving
“magical”
gifts as is the offering described below by Craig Childress .
Shadow is strong , Light is much stronger .
Love Builds Bridges ❤️
On the second day of Christmas…
I just got Dorcy her Christmas present. Shhhh, don’t tell her.
It’s a book by a renowned family therapist, Cloe Madanes, entitled: Changing Relationships: Strategies for Therapists and Coaches.
Cloe Madanes just published it earlier in the year, in 2018. Cloe is my absolute all-time favorite family therapist. She was married to Jay Haley, the other top echelon family therapist I quote, and Cloe and Jay Haley and Salvador Minuchin all worked at the same Child Guidance Clinic in Philadelphia back in the 70s, and this particular clinic was one of the several focal points for the development of family therapy. Cloe Madanes is like top-of-the-top family therapist.
Salvador Minuchin is called “structural” family systems therapy, Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes are called “strategic” family systems therapy. Same basic principles, different approaches to intervention.
And in 2018 Cloe Madanes writes a book for therapists and coaches… and coaches… right there in the title. You see, in family systems therapy, we totally understand families. Cloe Madanes is not even aware of what’s happening in forensic psychology, and independently in her world of normal family therapy she is fully comfortable working in complete collaboration with family coaches.
So comfortable, that she writes a book of “Strategies for Therapists and Coaches” without even batting an eye – right there in the title. In family systems therapy, the collaboration of therapists and coaching is fully wonderful, fully recognized, and fully legitimate. Family systems therapists get it. We understand families, we understand solutions.
And remember, Cloe Madanes has no idea that your families or this pathology over here in “forensic psychology” even exists. Clinical psychology is prohibited from working with your children and families or we’ll lose our license, so Cloe and all of family therapy do not work with your families.
Don’t believe me? Read Cloe’s book and see if that resembles anything even remotely close to your experience of “family therapy” (or “reunification therapy”) – not even; uh-unh, not at all. Not even in the same universe. One’s family therapy and one’s just whatever-nonsense.
Family therapy is one of the four primary schools of psychotherapy, the others being psychoanalytic (Freud and the coach), humanistic-existential (self-actualization and hot tubs), and cognitive-behavioral therapy (lab rats and Learning Theory). All psychotherapy without exception should be from one of these four primary schools… otherwise, it’s not psychotherapy… it’s just whatever-nonsense.
Family therapy is the only school of psychotherapy that is for families, it is the type of psychotherapy that should be used with your families, but isn’t being used… because forensic psychology is not using any form of established or defined psychotherapy with your families.
Meanwhile, over in clinical psychology, the family therapy and family coach collaboration is so wonderful that the premiere family therapist, Cloe Madanes, writes a book in 2018 specifically for family therapists and coaches.
Cloe doesn’t even actually discuss the role of coaches and therapists… because it’s actually a non-issue and so ordinary that it’s not worth discussing. She mostly just begins sentences saying…
From Cloe Madanes: “In a strategic approach to coaching and to therapy, the most frequent intervention is the directive…” (p. 14).
From Cloe Madanes: “Reframing is a communication strategy broadly used by therapists and coaches. People typically present one view of the obstacles that trouble them. The coach/therapist transforms these obstacles into new difficulties that can be solved…” (p. 15),
Notice in these two examples how she just basically uses the two terms as the same: “a strategic approach to coaching and to therapy” – “used by therapists and coaches” – “the coach/therapist.” Basically the same. She even switches up which one goes first, for example giving primacy to the coach in the “coach/therapist” term she uses.
I completely agree with Cloe Madanes. When working with children and families – family therapist – family coach. It’s a collaborative approach to solution. Knowledge is knowledge.
This book by Cloe Madanes is one of my Christmas presents from me-to-myself from “my wife” (thanks honey, just what I wanted)… and now it’s becoming my Christmas present to Dorcy… but don’t tell her, I want it to be a surprise.
You know what… I’d like to make it my Christmas holiday present to all of you as well? I can’t actually buy you the book, but if you go to Amazon and buy it for yourself, like I did for me from “my wife,” then you could say it’s from Dr. C, so it’d be kind of like my present to you.
Madanes: Changing Relationships: Strategies for Therapists and Coaches.
https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Relationships-Strategies-Therapists-Coaches/dp/1934442593
I think you’ll find it amazingly fascinating what actual family therapy is. Wow. So – so different from what you guys have. I don’t even recognize the type of therapy your families are receiving – it’s nothing actually. Forensic psychology is just sort of flailing about, making stuff up and making a big mess of everything.
So you’d probably find a book describing real family therapy fascinating – this is what family therapy is – and I can’t think of a better book than one from a premiere family systems therapist, Cloe Madanes, written in 2018, it’s only 134 pages, and it’s simply busting at the brim with strategies for family therapy… and family coaching… she said so, right in the title of her book, for therapists and coaches.
Family therapy and family coaching… chocolate chip cookies and milk. Once we bring clinical psychology back to court-involved practice, we can start fixing things.
The world is changing.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857
