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Families with Illness

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Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy

Name of Family Form

Families with Illness

Introduction

Medical and psychological treatments have long focused on working with the identified patient in an individualized context. Developments in systemically focused models have implored professionals to consider the relevant family contexts in treating these patients. Nothing occurs in a vacuum, and physical, mental, chronic, or terminal illnesses affect every family.

There have been many hindrances to the expansion from individual to systemic treatment in the medical field. Medicine relies on biologically based disease classification that determines diagnosis and treatment plans (Rolland 2018). In contrast to this method, a common-factors approach to treatment includes family members of patients receiving treatment and at-home treatment resources, addressing needs which exist across many diagnoses.

Description

Caregiving is a central aspect of family functioning. In the case of an illness, the caregiving unit may expand to include...

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References

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Correspondence to Amelia Welch .

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Welch, A., Mattson, C.T. (2019). Families with Illness. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_490

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