Saboteurs, Scapegoats And Secrets: Diagnosis In Family Therapy

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...

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My Wife Died After Giving Birth

When Judah Schiller talks about how he met his wife, Galit, his voice gets soft. "I was 25 at the time and scuba diving in the Red Sea," the executive vice president of Saatchi & Saatchi S reminisces. "You can imagine: pillows, campfire, the beautiful water, the brown hues of the desert. I was sitting there trying to charm these two very lovely French models, and Galit sat down a few pillows away from us. She was a very pretty woman, and I could tell she was kind of eavesdropping, so I invited her to join the conversation."

The models left, and the couple watched the sun set over the Sinai Mountains, beginning a charmed courtship that resulted in their 1998 marriage. Shortly afterward, they settled in San Francisco, where their first son, Tomer, was born in 1999. In 2002, they had their daughter, Naomi....

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