What is it about?
This article provides guidelines for working with stepfamilies. The article is relevant for individual, couple, and family therapists, and for those who work with both adults and children. It delineates the ways in which stepfamilies are fundamentally different from first-time families. It describes the five major challenges stepfamilies create and provides evidence-informed strategies for meeting each on three different levels: Psychoeducational, interpersonal, and intrapsychic.
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Why is it important?
42% of Americans have a close step relationship. Rates of divorce and recoupling are also rising in other countries. This family form is fundamentally different from a "first-time family" and often creates intense challenges for individual family members (stepparents, parents, children, and ex-spouses) and for all subsystems (stepcouple, parent-child, stepparent-stepchild, ex-spouses). What works is often quite different from what works in a first-time family. Despite all of this, very few clinicians receive any training in how to work with stepfamily issues. This article provides evidence-informed guidelines for effective therapy for individual, couple, and family therapists.
Perspectives
It has been a pleasure work with Larry Ganong and Marilyn Coleman, and an honor to bring this subsection to Family Process. Many therapists just aren't aware of how different these family systems are, and few have had an opportunity to read the increasingly sophisticated research available on stepfamily relationships. I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to bring this information to my clinical colleagues.
Patricia Papernow
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Clinical Guidelines for Working With Stepfamilies: What Family, Couple, Individual, and Child Therapists Need to Know, Family Process, October 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/famp.12321.
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