The family health maintenance demonstration : a controlled long term investigation of family health. Proceedings of a round table at the 1953 Annual Conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund.

  • Milbank Memorial Fund.
Date:
1954
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The family health maintenance demonstration : a controlled long term investigation of family health. Proceedings of a round table at the 1953 Annual Conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    63/261 (page 58)
    seem important to clarify that we cannot mean preventive in a primary sense, as in public health epidemiology, but preventive in the sense of ameliorating function inhibiting anxieties, freeing ener gies, circumventing more serious disturbance. Who then is to be treated, how, and by whom? The social worker having seen both parents, having observed the children on their visits to the center; having observed the interaction of parent and child on such visits, having in some instances had the opportunity to do some play or interview therapy with the children; prepares a diag nostic statement with regard to the family as a whole and the in dividuals who go to make up that family. A diagnostic statement consists of the worker’s formulation of the personalities of the family members on two levels—one with regard to what the patient con sciously know about himself and his functioning—how aware he is of the stresses and strains in his own make-up and secondly the worker’s analysis of those unconscious factors in the individuals and family’s personality which influence behavior. It includes also an analysis of how the family functions, where the difficulties exist, who is in need of help, and some statement as to the readiness of the individual to respond to an offer of help. Very often the initial interview itself is therapeutic since in talking about their feelings they experience some ventilation and occasionally achieve an insight about themselves in relation to a family member or a situation. At the time of the staff conference on the family, the social worker presents her diagnostic statement—all members of the team having previously read the total family record. It is then decided which member of the team shall work with which member of the family, providing a need for treatment is seen. If the decision is that the social worker is the one to treat either parent or child, this is dis cussed with the parents at the time of the family conference. If at this conference, the parents object to or deny the need for help either for themselves or the children, no further attempt is made at that time to involve them, but the way is left open for them to reconsider their decision. Actually the whole concept of the family conference is a very interesting one and deserves a special study in itself. To my mind