A study of ritual in modern life discusses daily rituals, celebrations, life-cycle rituals, and rites of passage and proposes ways to rediscover meaning in often stale rituals. $25,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing Our Lives and Our Relationships

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Imber-Black, Evan

Roberts, Janine

Psychology & Counseling

Harpercollins

In a timely, groundbreaking guide, two family therapists explore how to use rituals to make the happy moments in life more joyous, the sad moments more comforting, the important moments more memorable, and the intimate moments more cherishable. Line drawings.

Self-Help

Evan Imber-Black

Janine Roberts, Ed.D.

Relationships

Perennial

Secret-keeping is a seemingly unavoidable part of human interaction, from governments to married couples. Unlike privacy, which in the West is considered a healthy characteristic of the autonomous adult, secrets are often troublesome, creating distorted perceptions and strained relationships. Secrets, moreover, are complex. They differ in significance (a surprise party versus hidden incest), in the ways they shape family relationships (who knows what about whom), in their location (between family members or between the family and society), and in their effects on individual functioning (Does the secret affect only one relationship or the overall way the individual responds to others?). Because of this complexity, secrets are resistant to simple "rules": Therapy must comprise more than opening up the secret or addressing only the context and not the content or vice versa. Therapists are confronted with the difficult task of examining their own values regarding secrecy while, at the same time, providing an effective therapeutic environment. Practical issues of individual safety, the meaning of the secret for the family, the therapist's attitude towards secrets in general and the family's secret in particular - all must be considered in order for treatment to be effective. Here, Imber-Black and her contributors offer a vast array of approaches to helping families deal with secrets involving sexuality, race, violence, parentage, substance abuse, illness, and death. The contributors explore the therapeutic, social, and political issues of secrets, while always keeping families firmly in mind. Through the many case examples, they show us how families, at first constricted by the need to maintain secrecy, can gain strength through greater openness. Part I sets the stage by defining secrets and their often shame-bound origins. Part II examines secrets throughout the family life cycle: in couples, between parents and children, and with loss. Part III shows how addictions such as drug abuse and eating disorders are often symptoms of unhealthy secrets. In Part IV, secrets of violence and abuse are discussed. Part V offers a comprehensive look at social secrets involving sexism, heterosexism, and taboos. Part VI discusses two very charged topics: secret-keeping involving race and racism and with AIDS. Part VII concludes the book by offering a pattern for teaching and handling secrets in therapist training. This diverse cast of talented therapists provides an elastic model for treating family secrets, while compelling us to reevaluate our own thinking about secrets.

Secrets in Families and Family Therapy

Mental Health

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

When do I have the right to keep a secret? Who has a responsibility to open a secret? How do I know the time is right to maintain a secret or to open it? How do I make it safe for myself and others? What are my obligations to the people I love where secrets are concerned? An HIV-positive man fears losing his job if his health status becomes known. . . . A wife keeps a secret bank account. . . . A husband has an affair. . . . A teen refuses to say where she goes at night. . . . Secrets come in all shapes and sizes. And for families as well as individuals, they are built on a complex web of shifting motives and emotions. But today, when personal revelations are posted on the Internet or sensationalized on afternoon talk shows, we risk losing touch with how important secrets are--how they are used and abused, their power to harm and to heal. In fact, what we choose to share or to keep silent about can affect, for better or worse, our health, our work, our relationships, our future. Evan Imber-Black eloquently and compassionately describes how to maintain a balance between candor and caution to ensure that secrets remain a creative rather than a destructive force in our lives. She helps us understand: The distinction between healthy privacy and toxic secrecy What to tell--and not to tell--young children How to safely confront a family "zone of silence" Why adolescents need to have some secrets--and where to draw the line The role of gender, race, religion, and class in shaping our secrets The effect of "official" secrets, like sealed adoption records and medical testing What to consider before revealing an important secret And much more Filled with moving first-person stories, The Secret Life of Families provides perspective on some of today's most sensitive personal and social issues. It is a book that gives voice to our deepest fears and to our power to overcome them--a book that will be talked about for years to come.

The Secret Life of Families: Truth-telling, Privacy, and Reconciliation in a Tell-All Society

Bantam]

Secrets come in all shapes and sizes. And for families as well as individuals, they are built on a complex web of shifting motives and emotions. But today, when personal revelations are posted on the Internet or sensationalized on afternoon talk shows, we risk losing touch with how important secrets are--how they are used and abused, their power to harm and heal. In this important work, Evan Imber-Black explores the nature of secrets, helping us understand: The distinction between healthy privacy and toxic secrecy What to tell--and not to tell--young children How to safely confront a family "zone of silence" Why adolescents need to have some secrets--and where to draw the line The effect of "official" secrets, like sealed adoption records and medical testing What to consider before revealing an important secret And much more Filled with moving first-person stories, The Secret Life of Families provides perspective on some of today's most sensitive personal and social issues. Giving voice to our deepest fears and to our power to overcome them, this is a book that will be talked about for years to come.

The Secret Life of Families: Making Decisions About Secrets: When Keeping Secrets Can Harm You, When Keeping Secrets Can Heal You-And How to Know the Difference

Random House Publishing Group

Authors Evan Imber-Black and Janine Roberts show how we can learn to tap the power of rituals to mark transitions, express important values, heal the past, and deepen relationships. Each chapter looks at the special issues and possibilities for nuclear, extended, single-parent, and remarried families, as well as for single adults and couples. The authors also pay particular attention to how changing gender roles are reflected in our rituals, and how revitalized traditions can actually alter the course of intimate relationships. Filled with first-person stories and practical examples, this book will help all readers enhance the meaning of traditions old and new, reinforcing and celebrating life's many milestones and ties.

Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing Our Lives and Our Relationships (The Master Work Series)

Religion & Spirituality

Jason Aronson, Inc.

The Secret Life of Families: Truth-Telling, Privacy, and Reconciliation in a Tell-All Society [Jun 01, 1998] Imber-Black, Evan 0788194798

The Secret Life of Families: Truth-Telling, Privacy, and Reconciliation in a Tell-All Society

Parenting & Relationships

Diane Pub Co.

If individuals cannot adequately be understood without reference to the family system, families themselves are comprehensible only in a broader social context. FAMILIES AND LARGER SYSTEMS is the first single-author book on families and larger systems designed specifically for the practicing therapist. It offers rich descriptions of the difficulties families and larger systems often pose for one another; presents a detailed assessment model for therapists; and provides a careful interviewing format as well as directions for designing creative interventions. Imber-Black offers a consultation model for dealing with families and larger systems who have become embroiled with one another, and methods for longer term work with those families who must engage with larger systems across significant portions of their life cycle, due to illness, handicaps, or poverty. Problems of labeling, stigma, and secrecy in families are addressed, and an entire chapter is devoted to women's issues in families and related systems. Utilizing numerous case illustrations and interview excerpts, Dr, Imber-Black first delineates the problems common to family-larger system situations, analyzing the origins of these interactions, the assessment model and interviewing methods used, and the design and implementation of intervention. In the second half of her book, she presents in-depth discussions of strategies for improving the relationship between families and related systems. Through concrete example and hands-on analysis, Imber-Black shows how the misconceptions, assumptions, and subsequent labeling of family functioning and family members give rise to stalemated situations. FAMILIES AND LARGER SYSTEMS provides a practical guide for all clinicians regardless of theoretical orientation. Therapists who wish to maintain a career in public sector settings, such as mental health clinics, hospitals, and schools, will find in this volume direction for effective work with families and the maintenance of good working relationships with colleagues. Therapists in private practice will discover that Imber-Black's model will aid their conceptualization of cases that have involved multiple therapists or other practitioners. Much of the material presented will also be useful to human services workers, both professional and paraprofessional, in welfare, child welfare, probation, drug counseling, schools and other institutions. The book's ecological viewpoint, which enables such professionals to see their own position in the system, also helps them to avoid the traps of replicating existing patterns, and to position themselves for therapeutic change. Finally, this book will be of interest to human service system administrators and program planners. The case examples offer a seldom seen view of the struggles families and multiple helpers can have with one another, while its theoretical models can be utilized to assess current inter-systematic functioning among larger systems in a community, with implications for program design and burn-out prevention.

Families and Larger Systems: A Family Therapist's Guide through the Labyrinth

The Guilford Press

Die Macht des Schweigens. Geheimnisse in der Familie.

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See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Imber-Black, Evan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Imber-Black, Evan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Imber-Black, Evan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing Our Lives and Our Relationships

Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing Our Lives and Our Relationships

Secrets in Families and Family Therapy

The Secret Life of Families: Truth-telling, Privacy, and Reconciliation in a Tell-All Society

The Secret Life of Families: Making Decisions About Secrets: When Keeping Secrets Can Harm You, When Keeping Secrets Can Heal You-And How to Know the Difference

Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing Our Lives and Our Relationships (The Master Work Series)

The Secret Life of Families: Truth-Telling, Privacy, and Reconciliation in a Tell-All Society

Families and Larger Systems: A Family Therapist's Guide through the Labyrinth

Die Macht des Schweigens. Geheimnisse in der Familie.