Working with Chronic Illness

This innovative and challenging book provides a theoretical and practical framework for understanding and helping people face the challenge of living with serious physical illness. Drawing on Jenny Altschuler's considerable experience of inpatient and outpatient work, Working with Chronic Illness shows how family therapy techniques can be used by professionals working within a range of contexts, including schools, inpatient and outpatient settings. Clinical cases illustrate the profound dilemmas faced by families and professionals and offer specific guidelines to this work. A range of questions and exercises are provided to help the reader extend their own understandings of the issues confronting families.
Working with Chronic Illness recognises both the losses and gains experienced by individuals and familes as they seek to make sense of the impact of illness on their lives. It raises questions abut the imbalance created in families when illness strikes a member, challenging key beliefs about vulnerability, loss, caring and professional distance. Written by experienced trainers of family therapy, the book provides a fresh and provactive insight into training and clinical work in a demanding field.

JENNY ALTSCHULER is Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Family Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic. She has previously worked as a member of the Child Psychiatry Team, Royal Free Hospital and has written widely on working with physical illness and gender.

Contributors:

Barbara Dale - Senior Clinical Lecturer in Social Work, Family Psychotherapist and Vice Dean of the Child and Family Department, Tavistock Clinic
John Byng-Hall - Consultant Child and Family Psychiatrist and Family Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic