Defiance in the Family: Finding Hope in Therapy

Rating:
Summary: There's Hope
Review: The authors of Defiance in the Family succeed not just in writing a superb book, but in creating a great therapy session for the reader. The writing has a tremendously intimate feel, like we are sitting in the living room with the authors and these families. We come away with greater respect for,and understanding of, their--and our--deeply human struggles. The authors act as experienced, wise tour guides to the land of family life, and allow us to see it for perhaps the first time in all its pain and beauty.

The authors themselves are "defiant" in the way they offer a refreshing view of the complex web of interpersonal relationships that we call "family". This stands in contrast to what they suggest as the prevailing tendency to compartmentalize, pathologize and medicate symptomatic teens, who are mostly a symbolic expression of family love in search of itself. The authors eloquently discuss the social/medical culture's love affair with the "quick fix", and offer us instead something more resonant and powerful. They offer us hope by conveying their deep respect for the complexities and ambiguities of family relationships. The authors are not engaged in a struggle to wrestle these ambiguities to the ground, but throughout the book, encourage the reader to embrace these ambiguities as a road that takes us closer to healing truths about families, and ourselves.

I think the broad appeal of this book lies in the combination of experience and humanity of the authors. Accomplished therapists will especially appreciate the chapters relating to the "self" of the therapist, including strategies for maintaining therapist equilibrium in the face of an acute family crisis.

Beginning and mid-level therapists will benefit from the authors "walking through" a therapy session, deliniating the components of the different therapy stages, and offering transcripts and vignettes which illustrate some of the "how to's" in conducting a family therapy session.

And finally, this book will serve as a beacon for families privileged to be living with a "defiant" child. Believing that "parents blame themselves enough", the authors instead offer a rich story about the many ways in which family members unintentionally wound each other, and give parents new insight into the meaning of their child's bewildering behavior. This makes it possible for parents to respond to the behavior in a new way--they will now have the pleasure of confusing their child!

I continue to enjoy this book as I would a good CD. I pick it up, open to any page, and savor the sounds coming from its pages. And, like a good piece of music, when it's over I am lighter, freer, more human.

Thank you for that, Drs. Keith and Connells.