Causal attributions during therapy II: Reconstituted families and parental blaming

Abstract

A powerful route to understanding communication within the family is provided by identifying and coding the causal attributions they make during family therapy sessions. The analysis of attributions of responsibility reported in the first of these linked papers (Stratton, 2003) is here extended to explore the accounts given by biological, step‐ and adoptive parents about their children. Some 1799 causal attributions offered spontaneously by the family members during therapy were analysed according to the Leeds Attributional Coding System (Stratton et al., 1988). Attributional styles that previously have been found to relate to abuse were more common when stepfathers talked about their children, although none of the parents were believed to be abusing their children. The adoptive parents' attributions were more explicit about problems with the children but were more likely to be functional. Stepfathers made substantially more attributions in the form of blaming a child, with the dimensions identifying characterological blaming being especially significant. Alternative styles of attributing which would offer a way of avoiding characterological blaming are presented. Possible causes and consequences of the consistencies in problematic attributing, and the implications for therapy, are discussed.