searchfortruth.info > Family Secrets

Family Secrets

Saboteurs, Scapegoats And Secrets: Diagnosis In Family Therapy

by

IN CLINICAL PRACTICE one becomes more and more impressed with the importance of interviewing and understanding the whole family in certain situations. Family attitudes can make or break a successful treatment program, so a diagnostic interview should be held to determine how a family functions.

The Diagnostic Interview

The diagnostic interview is different from a therapeutic interview, especially concerning the referring agent and the family. No commitment for ongoing work is made prior to the diagnostic interview. The possibilities for further counselling are assessed with the family, and ideally with the referring agent,'at or shortly after the diagnostic interview. The referring agent may be a public health nurse, teacher, child care worker, or social worker from a community agency. We hope to have all the important members of the family present at the diagnostic interview. In practice this usually means everyone living in the same house as...

Read More!

Family Secrets: Law and Understandings of Openness in Everyday Relationships

by

Abstract

Uncovering old or historical family secrets has become an enjoyable pastime yet in contemporary families the keeping of secrets, especially those relating to reproduction and paternity, is seen increasingly as undesirable. This article explores these issues and the growing tendency for family law and policy to favour exposing genetic truths seeing this form of scientific veracity as crucial to child welfare and equality. The article explores the changing contexts of family secrets (using data drawn from the Mass Observation Archive) and seeks to locate these secrets in their cultural and historical context. An argument against imposing a simple solution (in the form of genetic truth) onto complex relationships is pursued.

Introduction

Uncovering family secrets has become a popular pastime. Not only do stories of revealed family secrets make good newspaper copy, but genealogical searches are often tinged with the prospective excitement of finding a family secret buried in the past. Stories of illegitimacy, bigamy and even criminality seem to become charming, as long as they...

Read More!