Balancing Family and Work: Special Considerations in Feminist Therapy

Use these techniques to help your clients achieve the balance they need!

This fascinating book explores both theoretical and immediately applicable ideas for helping clients achieve an improved balance between work life and family life. From a feminist family therapy perspective, Balancing Family and Work examines special issues and topics related to dual-earner couples caring for children and aging parents and the behavioral accommodations they make at home; assesses the impact of relocation on family/work life; brings diversity issues to the forefront; assesses the impact of dominant metaphors about personhood and family; and more.

from the editor:

“One of the most dominant cultural stories in the United States today, particularly for women, is that balancing family and work is “impossible.” This story is laden with images of exhausted women, neglected children, and uninvolved fathers. Barriers to the successful balance of family and work include inflexible, nonsupportive work environments that are structured as if every worker has a ‘wife’at home; lack of affordable/quality childcare; and inequality in intimate relationships. In addition, all families face the challenge of balancing family and work in a culture of workaholism (reflected in the fact that average working hours in the United States are higher than in any other industrialized country) and in a culture with biases against maternal employment.”

This vital book examines:

• the challenges families and therapists face in the information society
• philosophies and strategies for equitably dividing a family’s organizational tasks (maintaining the family calendar, managing the household, organizing the children’s activities)
• ways that family therapists are responding to the normative challenges of dual-earner couples
• balance issues for nontraditional families
• research findings--from the 1960s to the present--on the strengths and stressors of dual-career couples
• and much more!