Up close: family therapy challenges and innovations around the world.

Family therapists from 10 different countries (China, India, Israel including Palestinian citizens, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, and the United Kingdom) describe systemic therapy in their contexts and current innovative work and challenges. They highlight the importance of family therapy continuing to cut across disciplines, the power of systems ideas in widely diverse settings and institutions (such as courts, HIV projects, working with people forced into exile), extensive new mental health initiatives (such as in Turkey and India), as well as the range of family therapy journals available (four alone in Spain). Many family therapy groups are collaborating across organizations (especially in Asia) and the article presents other ideas for connections such as a clearing house to inexpensively translate family therapy articles into other languages.

Arab parents' reactions to child sexual abuse: a review of clinical records.

This paper addresses parents' reactions to sexual abuse cases in their families. The study analyzed the clinical records of individual and family therapy sessions with 35 cases of Arab Palestinian clients, citizens of Israel (27 individuals and 8 families). Families were categorized as either functional or dysfunctional.

The impact of social values on the psychology of gender among Arab couples: a view from psychotherapy.

Three major psychosocial conditions have an effect upon the establishment of psychological problems within individuals and in the relationship of couples in the Arab family: (a) gender-dependent assessment of emotions, i.e., holding two different unequal yardsticks for two highly-genderized value systems; (b) imposing conflicting value demands on women; (c) glorifying and giving much respect to the notion of women's suffering in silence, a state described here as the "Mastoura" (tight lipped) woman, equivalent to the "learned helplessness" state.

Cultural norms versus state law in treating incest: a suggested model for Arab families.

Objective: This article examines problems of intervention in sexual abuse cases among collective societies and offers a culturally sensitive model of intervention.

Method: The manuscript is based on cross-cultural literature and clinical cases within the Palestinian community in Israel.

Results: Unlike Western societies in which the state takes responsibility for the needs of its citizens and has laws that aim to protect victims of sexual abuse and to punish the perpetrators, in many collective societies people live in interdependence with their families.