Clinical Guidelines for Working With Stepfamilies: What Family, Couple, Individual, and Child Therapists Need to Know

Abstract

This article draws on four decades of research and clinical practice to delineate guidelines for evidence-informed, clinically sound work with stepfamilies for couple, family, individual adult, and child therapists. Few clinicians receive adequate training in working with the intense and often complex dynamics created by stepfamily structure and history. This is despite the fact that stepfamilies are a fundamentally different family form that occurs world-wide. As a result many clinicians rely on their training in first-time family models. This is not only often unhelpful, but all too often inadvertently destructive. The article integrates a large body of increasingly sophisticated research about stepfamilies with the author's four decades of clinical practice with stepfamily relationships. It describes the ways in which stepfamilies are different from first-time families. It delineates the dynamics of five major challenges stepfamily structure creates: (1) Insider/outsider positions are intense and they are fixed. (2) Children struggle with losses, loyalty binds, and change. (3) Issues of parenting, stepparenting, and discipline often divide the couple. (4) Stepcouples must build a new family culture while navigating previously established family cultures. (5) Ex-spouses (other parents outside the household) are part of the family. Some available data are shared on the impact of cultural and legal differences on these challenges. A three-level model of clinical intervention is presented: Psychoeducational, Interpersonal, and Intrapsychic/Intergenerational Family-of-Origin. The article describes some "easy wrong turns" for well-meaning therapists and lists some general clinical guidelines for working with stepfamily relationships.

Keywords: Clinical Work with Stepcouples; Individual, Couple, and Family Therapy with Stepfamily Members; Parenting and Discipline in Stepfamilies; Stepfamily Challenges; Stepparents; Therapy with Stepchildren; crianza y disciplina en las familias ensambladas; desafíos y estructura de la familia ensamblada; individuo; terapia con los hijastros; terapia de pareja y familiar con las familias ensambladas; trabajo clínico con las relaciones en las familias ensambladas; 亲职以及管束问题的心理咨询; 伴侣和家庭心理治疗; 继亲家庭个人; 继亲家庭关系临床工作; 继亲家庭结构和挑战; 继亲家长; 针对继亲家庭中继亲子女.