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This article presents the author's personal narrative of his childhood to illustrate how messages and meanings of family stories from the past can be transferred into one's current life and future plans. The author says that as he sits in his university office ready to tell people this story, he looks up over his computer screen and notice three pictures. Each represents something important from his past that makes up a meaningful part of who he is in the present, personally as well as professionally. Straight above the computer, his eye meets a larger collage made of straw and colored cloth. It shows, two frightened children holding each other tight while facing an old woman who leans on a crooked stick and stares at the children wickedly. A pigeon is flying over the house and an owl watches from a nearby tree. In front of the house, a boy and a girl look at the entrance in fearful excitement. Rediscovering the magic of the past can empower people in the present and make them hopeful for the future. Counseling and therapy are wonderful tools and contexts to recreate and translate inner truths of clients in ways that give them more control over their lives.

Family counselors have viewed the use of standardized family assessment instruments with considerable ambivalence. This article briefly describes this ambivalence and argues that the use of self-report questionnaires and observational rating scales can enhance a practitioner's clinical assessment in three ways. First, it complements the practitioner's initial assessment; second, it helps in the development of treatment goats; and third, it provides information for evaluating treatment effectiveness. Furthermore, the author contends that the use of assessment instruments can create a collaborative working relationship between client and family counselor. The clinical report and its instruments are discussed, and a case example illustrates the application of the clinical report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the Clinical Rating Scale (CRS) and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES III), derived from the Circumplex Model used in family assessment. The Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems is an attempt to bridge family theory, research, and practice. Two central dimensions of family behavior are integrated in the model: family cohesion and family adaptability. The two dimensions with their four levels are arranged into the two-dimensional Circumplex Model, which yields 16 possible combinations of cohesion and adaptability. The four types in the center of the model are called "balanced" because they are hypothesized to be most viable for healthy family functioning. The four extremes are generally seen as most problematic in terms of family functioning. Until recently, practitioners primarily used self-report questionnaires when they relied on assessment instruments at all. The results of the present study suggest that the Clinical Rating Scale (CRS) is a very useful observational instrument that is derived from a theoretical model (Circumplex Model) and that has excellent reliability and validity.