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Provide effective counseling to members of single-parent families

With more than half of all first marriages ending in divorce, it’s time to re-think the notion that “divorce” means “failure.” Therapy with Single Parents focuses on the strengths of the single-parent family rather than its weaknesses, stressing the need to look at the socially constructed norms, values, and definitions associated with marriage and family in order to provide effective counseling. This unique book examines experiences that are common to single parents and presents interventive strategies for treating single-parent family issues, drawing on clinical case studies to provide technical knowledge in everyday language.

Current research shows that single parents account for 27 percent of family households that include children under 18 and that the number of single mothers in the United States more than tripled between 1970 and 2000. Therapy with Single Parents challenges outdated notions that the single-parent family is somehow deficient and associated with adjustment problems in children. It doesn’t ignore the anger, pain, sadness, and guilt experienced by many members of single parent families but offers therapeutic considerations from a more balanced approach. The book examines the social, psychological, and sexual experiences of newly single parents and addresses the ups and downs they’ll face in dealing with schools, the workplace, and social services.

Therapy with Single Parents examines:

• social and psychological differences between divorce and widowhood
  
• cognitive-behavioral principles of single-parent families
  
• what children can learn from divorce
  
• dealing with the ghosts of past relationships
  
• relationship rules
  
• dealing with adult children and extended families
  
• the effect of change in divorcing families
  
• the feminization of poverty
  
• the therapeutic value of social networks

Therapy with Single Parents is an invaluable resource for psychologists, professional counselors, social workers, and marriage and family therapists. The book presents a thorough, in-depth examination of the single-parent family system as a viable, healthy family form.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Gary B Kaniuk, Psy.D.(Cermak Health Services)
Description:This book discusses therapy with single parents from a social constructionist point of view. It combines understanding family meanings with a solution-focused approach, as opposed to a pathology orientation.
Purpose:According to the authors, "this book is directed toward helping those therapists who work with white, middle-class, divorced, and widowed clients -- those individuals who would be most likely to seek the services of mental health therapists in private practice. This is where our expertise lies, and it is here that we feel we can make the most appropriate contribution. In no way do we mean to minimize the importance of the other groups; we have simply decided to focus on particular segments of the single-parent population, the divorced and the widowed, in order to provide an in-depth analysis of the single-parent situation rather than a superficial gleaning of all groups fitting into the single-parent category," The book definitely meets the authors' objectives.
Audience:Therapists are the target audience. Dr. Atwood is the director of the graduate programs in marriage and family therapy at Hofstra University and has published numerous books and articles in this field. Dr. Genovese is an adjunct assistant professor of health professions and family studies, also at Hofstra, and has published in the area of bereavement and adolescence.
Features:The book's four parts cover social and psychological experiences of the single again, sexual experiences of those who are single again, single again and dealing with the larger systems, social construction therapy with the single-parent family. Many of the chapters contain brief case examples which help to highlight the concepts. The book is easy to read and delivers on the stated purpose. Chapters 10 and 11 nicely describe the social constructionist approach, although I wondered why this discussion came so late in the book. Chapter 11, "Conclusions," is a wonderful chapter that covers the pathological approach and how it differs from a solution focused model, which the book espouses. An annotated bibliography and a list of Internet resources, follows a traditional bibliography at the end of the book. The only drawback of the book is that it only discusses middle class, European-Americans.
Assessment:This is an excellent volume because it really covers the ground you expect. It discusses therapy with single parents through the lens of social construction theory. The brief clinical cases help to explain the material. The book is practical and easy to read. Most of the chapters have therapy strategies, reaching out to the target audience. If you are working with single parents (and who isn't), this is the book to have. Unfortunately, the authors only focus on European-American single parents, which is a drawback.

	Introduction	1
Stage 1	Entering the Field	5
Ch. 1	Aging and Media Use	7
Ch. 2	Television and Social Life in the Nursing Home	13
Ch. 3	Ethnographic Methodology	21
Ch. 4	A Day in the Nursing Home	31
	Summary of Stage One	43
Stage 2	Narrowing the Focus	47
Ch. 5	Program Preferences and Routines	49
Ch. 6	Roommates and Coordination	57
Ch. 7	Key Informants	65
	Summary of Stage Two	85
Stage 3	Analysis and Conclusions	87
Ch. 8	The Viewing Stance	89
Ch. 9	Control and Selectivity	101
Ch. 10	Minimizing the Negatives	117
Ch. 11	Storytelling: Accentuating the Positive	125
Ch. 12	Conclusions and Recommendations	135
	Bibliography	143
	Index	149