Family Unit Treatment in Child Guidance.

This article presents information on the new emphases, especially the development of the concept of the family as a unit in treatment, and indicating how that concept may be related to casework with parents in child guidance. The term "family unit treatment" as used in this paper does not refer to a specific procedure or structure for providing service, such as conjoint interviewing or the use of the same worker for varied family members, but rather to an orientation, the central concept of which is the recognition that the psychopathology of any member of a family affects and is affected by the interaction of the whole family and that constructive psychological change can therefore be achieved most economically by focusing therapeutic effort on the whole family. The National Institute of Mental Health has long been involved in research in family dynamics, emphasizing initially an intensive study of families of a small group of schizophrenic patients and extending to studies involving a random sample of newly married young couples in the stages of courtship, early married life, and the first pregnancy.