ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines helpful information and provides assistance to counselors working with children and adolescents. It suggests that child and adolescent counselors take classes in family counseling even if not present in the core program of study. The chapter focuses on parts of the theories and practices used in four models of family counseling, and uses these models as a way to propose an integrative model to family counseling involving children and adolescents. The four models are: object-relations family therapy with its focus on attachment theory; Adlerian family therapy with its focus on teleology and the interactive nature of goals in family interactions; Satir’s human validation process model with its emphasis on self-esteem, communication, and the transformation of family rules; and McGoldrick’s use of genograms in mapping the influences of multiple generations on children. Multicultural family counseling includes training in knowledge, awareness, and skills of multiculturally competent counseling, as counseling graduate trainings programs employ.
