CIRILLO, Stefano and Paola DiBLASIO, FAMILIES THAT ABUSE : Diagnosis and Therapy

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Cirillo, Stefano and Paola DiBlasio, Families That Abuse: Diagnosis and Therapy. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co., Ltd., 1992, 195pp., $22.95 hardcover.In this well-translated and easily read book, Cirillo and DiBlasio have, in a sense, written the history of a social service agency that specializes in clients involuntarily ordered by a court into therapy for abusive behavior towards children. The book traces the development of the agency, which the authors helped found and, most interestingly, the ways clinical theory was involved in forming agency policy. Cirillo and DiBlasio successfully demonstrate how the agency synchronized its practice theory with agency structure and procedures into an integrated framework of organization and practice.Families that Abuse makes three other significant points as well. Using systems theory, Cirillo and DiBlasio invoke the game metaphor to describe how the relations among family members are organized and evolve over time. In some ways the metaphor, perhaps without sufficient theoretical sophistication however, improves upon traditional systems theory by involving an individual's contribution to the game. These authors, unlike many straightforward systems theorists, recognize the relative autonomy of emotions, behaviors, and strategies (15) among a family's individual players. In other words, this book takes the family systems approach to a multi-dimensional level of analysis that broadens the utility, and possibly the external validity, of the theory. As the authors note, mandated therapy functions differently from voluntary treatment by definition and they explore the predisposing and mediating variables involved in abuse and seeking assistance at the individual, family, social, and cultural levels.Second, this book offers valuable insight into abusive families and involuntary therapy. Cirillo and DiBlasio discuss the psycho-social factors in abusive families' decisions not to request help. Though these factors are common knowledge for the most part, the authors give new and useful clinical evidence and recommendations that would assist therapists and social workers working with this population. Among the more interesting examples is the authors' technique for reframing court involvement as a clinicul maneuver for communicating with a family that is not otherwise responding to interventions. In addition, their model unites the therapy and control functions of helping professionals to prevent a client from polarizing between the good counselor (associated with treatment) and the bad social worker (often considered a control agent). …