Handbook of Family Resilience - by Dorothy S Becvar (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book offers a broad body knowledge regarding the traits and patterns that characterize resilient individuals and well-functioning families, including those with diverse structures, various ethnic backgrounds and a variety of non-traditional forms.

Book Synopsis

Resilience is a topic that is currently receiving increased attention. In general, resilience refers to the capacity of those who, even under the most stressful circumstances, are able to cope, to rebound, and to go on and thrive. Resilient families are able to regain their balance following crises that arise as a function of either nature or nurture, and to continue to encourage and support their members as they deal with the necessary requirements for accommodation, adaptation and, ultimately, healthy survival. Handbook of Family Resilience provides a broad body of knowledge regarding the traits and patterns found to characterize resilient individuals and well-functioning families, including those with diverse structures, various ethnic backgrounds and a variety of non-traditional forms. This Handbook brings together a variety of perspectives aimed at understanding and helping to facilitate resilience in families relative to a full range of challenges.

From the Back Cover

In a time of increasing stressors affecting the lives of so many, resilience--the capacity for individuals to cope, adapt, survive, and thrive despite severe crises and long odds--is a hot topic. Now resilience as both a family trait and a family process is being recognized as equally deserving of study, especially as more families find themselves under greater social and economic strain.

The Handbook of Family Resilience offers scholarly and practical perspectives on how resilient families adapt and adjust, for those seeking a deeper understanding of the concept as well as clinicians working hands-on with families. Resilience is seen as an evolving process over the lifespan as family members support one another, marshal their resources (internal and external), and maintain their functioning through normative, extraordinary, and multiple stressors. Contributors examine resilience across a diverse range of family structures, cultural groups, and challenging circumstances, with an array of timely topics including:

• Clinical ramifications of a focus on family resilience.
• Family resilience in the context of high-risk situations.
• Resilience in ethnic family systems.
• Enhancing resilience in families of children with autistic spectrum disorder.
• From challenge to wisdom: Resilience in aging.
• Family and community resilience in the experience of mass trauma.
• Resilience as tolerance for ambiguity.
• Resilience in the context of grief and loss.

This book is an empowering resource for professionals and practitioners working with families, including sociologists, psychologists, therapists, and social workers. Its breadth of coverage makes it an invaluable text for researchers, graduate students, and faculty in family studies, couple and family therapy, child development, psychology, sociology, social work, public health, and related fields.

Review Quotes

"...Dorothy Becvar brings together an A-plus group of multidisciplinary experts in the field of family research and practice to examine the construct of resilience across diverse family structures, cultural groups, and hardships.

...

Overall, Handbook of Family Resilience is a well-written, comprehensive book that may leave its readers with more questions than answers. Calling for a paradigm shift in how families are conceptualized, studied, and treated, this pioneering book belongs on the shelves of anyone interested in working families experiencing stressful life events. It is a must read."

-PsycCRITIQUES, Debra Zand, Ph.D., St. Louis University, MO, USA

About the Author

Dorothy Becvar is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist with 30 years of experience in both academia and private practice. Dorothy is a former Editor of Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal. She has published extensively and in addition to many journal articles and book chapters is the author of the books Families that Flourish: Facilitating Resilience in Clinical Practice (Norton, 2007), In the Presence of Grief: Helping Family Members Resolve Death, Dying and Bereavement Issues (Guilford Press, 2001) and Soul Healing: A Spiritual Orientation in Counseling and Therapy (Basic Books, 1997) as well as the editor of the book The Family, Spirituality and Social Work (Haworth, 1997). With her husband, Raphael J. Becvar, she has co-authored four books: Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration (Allyn & Bacon, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009), Pragmatics of Human Relationships (Geist & Russell, 1998), Hot Chocolate for a Cold Winter's Night: Essays for Relationship Development (Love Publishing, 1994), and Systems Theory and Family Therapy: A Primer (University Press of America, 1982, 1999). And she is co-editor, with William Nichols, Mary Anne Pace-Nichols and Augustus Napier, of the Handbook of Family Development and Intervention (Wiley, 2000).