Books
Linville, D., Hertlein, K.M. & Assoc. (2007) The Therapist's Notebook for Family Health Care: Homework, handouts, and activities for individuals, couples and families coping with illness, loss and disability. Haworth Press, New York.
This book offers medical family therapists and other clinicians working in healthcare creative resources and effective interventions for working with families coping with illness and loss. Each intervention is contextualized with a theoretical and practice based rationale, and includes a description of the intervention with accompanying handouts, case examples, and contraindications. Some of the best in our field have contributed chapters. Useful for clinical work and may spark ideas for teaching as well.
McDaniel, S. H., Hepworth, J. & Doughtery, W. (1992). Medical family therapy: A biopsychosocial approach to families with health problems. New York: Basic Books.
An introduction to how mental health therapists can coordinate with primary care providers to approach medical concerns in an integrated manner. Discusses therapeutic strategies for assisting patients and families who are coping with a variety of medical illnesses.
McDaniel, S. H., Campbell, T.L., Hepworth, J. & Lorenz, A. (2004). Family- oriented primary care: A manual for medical providers (2nd Ed). New York: Springer.
A practical guide for primary care providers to caring both the individual patient and the family. This book discusses the importance and value of approaching a patient from a family systems perspective and then delves into specific issues such as chronic illness, developmental issues/stages of a family and the impact on health and wellbeing, and family violence.
McGoldrick, M. & Gerson, R. (2008). Genograms and family assessment, 3rd ed. New York: Norton Books.
A genogram is a graphic way of organizing psychosocial information gathered during an assessment. This tool is frequently used by mental health therapists to organize and understand a patient's context from a family systems perspective. This approach can also be adopted in medical settings to provide a quick visual overview to family history and dynamics that may be impacting a patient. This book provides instructions on how to construct a genogram and use the results in a meaningful manner.
Rolland, J. (1994). Families, illness and disability: An integrative treatment model. New York: Basic Books.
This books discusses a systems approach to understanding chronic and life-threatening illnesses. The model presented by the author highlights how utilizing a systems approach can be beneficial for both assessment and treatment needs for families affected by illness.
Articles
Campbell, TL. (2005).The effectiveness of family interventions for physical disorders. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 29(2):263-281.
Reviews the evidence for the effectiveness of family interventions in the prevention and treatment of physical disorders. Covers four general areas: family caregiving of elders, childhood chronic illness, spouse involvement in chronic adult illnesses, and health promotion/disease prevention.
Families, Systems, & Health (Journal)
This journal is a publication of the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association. Peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal that publishes clinical research, training, and theoretical contributions in the areas of families and health, with particular focus on collaborative family healthcare. Click HERE to subscribe to the RSS feed for Families, Systems, & Health
Rolland JS, Walsh F. (2006).Facilitating family resilience with childhood illness and disability. Current Opinion Pediatrics, 18:527- 538.
Nice summary and integration of the Rolland's family systems model of illlness and Walsh's family resiliency model in a practical way for physician and behavioralists.
Rolland, JS. (1998) Beliefs and Collaboration in Illness: Evolution over time. Families,Systems & Health, Vol 16. Nos.1/2. pgs. 7-25.
Seminal article that examines how to understand and explore family belief systems in service of developing successful collaborative relationships with patients and families.
Weihs,K., Fisher, L., Baird, M. (2002) Families, Health and Behavior-A Section of the Commissioned Report by the Committee on Health and Behavior: Research, Practice, and Policy, Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health and Division of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. Families, Systems and Health, 20: 7-46.
This report addresses the influence of family relationships on the management and outcomes of chronic disease, provides an overview of the literature on family factors that are known to influence chronic disease, reviews family focused interventions, and provides research recommendations.
Classics
Candib, Lucy M.(1995) Medicine and the Family: a feminist perspective. New York: Basic Books.
Dr. Candib examines the assumptions underlying our notions of family and individual development, and the doctor-patient relationship, from a feminist point of view. She challenges us to re-think basic concepts of caring, power, and autonomy in the practice of family medicine while providing alternative definitions and practices based in feminist theory and her own extensive experience as a family doctor. As relevant now as when it was first published.