ABSTRACT
Spiritually sensitive counseling with intermarried families, whose members are increasing, requires a specialized approach to the complex issues involved. Recognizing the tremendous range of Jewish expressions is a first step in learning what it means to be working with Jewish clients, and how important it is to individualized treatment with each family. Numerous forms of psychotherapeutic treatment are felt to be effective and applicable in working with Jewish and orthodox families, such as structural family therapy, cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, and 'nonnormative' family therapy. Conservative Judaism is less literal and fundamental in its interpretation of the Torah, believing that Moses was divinely inspired, and it was through Moses that the Jewish people received the Torah and Ten Commandments. Conservative Jews apply principles of biblical criticism in their study of the Torah and commentaries as a narrative that was divinely inspired, but codified by humans at different points in history.
