The SCORE index of family functioning and change is an established measure, with strong psychometric properties, of the quality of family life. We report the sensitivity to therapeutic change of the short form, the SCORE-15. Data are reported from 584 participants aged above 11 years, representing 239 families. All couples and families had been referred for systemic couples and family therapy, completing the form at start of the first session and close to the fourth. The SCORE-15 is shown to be acceptable with strong consistency and reliability. Change over only three sessions was highly statistically significant. Further validation is provided by improvements in quantified scores correlating significantly with independent measures provided by family members and by their therapists. The SCORE-15 is a proven measure of therapy and of therapeutic change in family functioning. It is therefore a routinely usable tool applicable to service evaluation, quality improvement, and to support clinical practice.
Practitioner Points• The SCORE provides practitioners with brief descriptions of varied aspects of family interaction that have proven significance for many families who present for therapy. • SCORE-15 can be used with confidence to monitor and report proven indicators of progress in systemic therapy. • Because SCORE identifies clinically significant issues of family interaction it has many potential uses in therapy. • There are many new possibilities for therapists to undertake collaborative research.
In this paper, which is based on a larger research study, I address the research question: How is ‘the family’ constructed and talked about in intercultural and intracultural systemic clinical sessions? I use the qualitative research method of discourse analysis to analyse transcripts from eleven intercultural and intracultural video‐taped family therapy sessions. The participants in the research study were South Asian and White British clinicians and families. Through discourse analysis, I identified the ‘Outsider–Insider discourse of family life’ to describe the different ways in which families define the boundaries around ‘the family’. The findings suggest that although ‘the family’ was constructed differently by South Asian and White British families, clinicians – regardless of whether they were working interculturally or intraculturally – privileged a discourse of ‘the family’ as a two‐generation, two‐parent unit. The theoretical, clinical and training implication of this finding will be discussed.
We explore how “emotion maps” can be productively used in clinical assessment and clinical practice with families and couples. This graphic participatory method was developed in sociological studies to examine everyday family relationships. Emotion maps enable us to effectively “see” the dynamic experience and emotional repertoires of family life. Through the use of a case example, in this article we illustrate how emotion maps can add to the systemic clinicians’ repertoire of visual methods. For clinicians working with families, couples, and young people, the importance of gaining insight into how lives are lived, at home, cannot be understated. Producing emotion maps can encourage critical personal reflection and expedite change in family practice. Hot spots in the household become visualized, facilitating dialogue on prevailing issues and how these events may be perceived differently by different family members. As emotion maps are not reliant on literacy or language skills they can be equally completed by parents and children alike, enabling children's perspective to be heard. Emotion maps can be used as assessment tools, to demonstrate the process of change within families. Furthermore, emotion maps can be extended to use through technology and hence are well suited particularly to working with young people. We end the article with a wider discussion of the place of emotions and emotion maps within systemic psychotherapy.
e This article reports on the recent government initiative of 2007-2010 to delineate, for the major forms of psychological therapy, expected professional standards of practice and conduct in workplaces (the national occupational standards) and to specify expected levels of competent practice (the competences). The article focuses on the processes and outcomes of this initiative for systemic therapy and its clinical and political relevance. The rationale, research and consultation processes by which these formulations were achieved are described and the outcomes of the work are reported. We also discuss their wider implications, including the various ways in which these achievements might be used and their potential value for the field of systemic family and couples therapy.
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