The Abusing Family

"The Abusing Family, by Drs. Blair and Rita Justice, is very well written, rich in content and intellectually provocative. A statistics indicate, child abuse is recognized as one of the major social problems in the United States today. While many authors have shown a concern for environmental and social stresses impinging upon the abusing family, the Justices have a new emphasis and interpretation of stress as it relates to these families. There are several other unique features in this book. The authors are pioneers in their use of the transactional analytic approach to treating these families. This application appears to be genuinely innovative and has received a tangible, reasonable and plausible demonstration here. They are the first to combine transactional analysis and Goal Attainment Scaling in an effort to document explicit, negotiated treatment expectations which have both evaluative and therapeutic relevance. Their use of evaluation of treatment outcome as a means of influencing ultimate legal disposition is also new in this problem area." --- Thomas J. Kiresuk, Ph.D., Professor, University of Minnesota, Medical and Graduste Schools