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When human babies are born, they are totally helpless. The babies need the parent for total survival. As the child begins to develop into a toddler, preschooler, and an adolescent, the once helpless babies, are now taking on an identity of themselves. As parents teach their children the difference between right and wrong along with socially appropriate behavior, discipline is often used. [More]

Does antidepressant use during pregnancy cause autism, as a recently published study suggests? Using Family Systems Theory to answer this question will lead to a more nuanced answer than a traditional cause and effect conceptualization. [More]

Pet owners take note! How you parent your pet may mirror how you parent your children. (Or how you were parented). [More]

From the high school ranks to the professionals, it’s the time of year when the intensity of competition amps up and staying mentally tough under the highest pressure separates the good from the great. [More]

The Kennedy family has been in the news lately. Patrick Kennedy, son of former U.S. Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, has released a memoir that has become controversial, at least within the Kennedy family itself. In the memoir, Patrick, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, details a family history of alcohol abuse and mental illness. [More]

Familicide, or the deliberate act of killing a member of one’s own family, was highlighted in the media on October 22nd when a 62 year old grandmother from Oak Lawn, Illinois appeared in court, accused of the 2013 murder of her six month old granddaughter. [More]

This weekend we were stunned to find out that Danny Pintauro, the child star of Who’s the Boss for 8 years in the 1980’s, revealed to Oprah Winfrey on Friday that he has been HIV positive for 12 years. Danny chose to keep his diagnosis a secret for over a decade because he says that he just wasn’t ready to have what he knew would be a huge conversation about the issue, in addition to sharing something that was deeply personal about himself. [More]

After three years of joining efforts with more than 100 high-level health care professionals, attorneys, foster youth/caregivers/advocates, and the Department of Social Services, California has unveiled a sweeping set of guidelines aimed at cracking down on the overuse of psychiatric medication in foster care (de Sá, April 2015). The exhaustive efforts began in 2012 and have given birth to the new proposed measures which recently passed the Senate and are now in the Assembly to be finalized (de Sá, July 2015). [More]

Monday September 14, 14 year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested when school administrators and local police suspected him of having brought a bomb to school. Family Systems Theory provides a unique conceptual framework with which to view Mohamed’s story in an attempt to move toward an objective explanation of events. [More]

Women in the workforce has been a hot topic in the past year. What about a woman in a male only field? The National Football League (NFL) recently hired it’s first ever female coach. The Arizona Cardinals recently hired Jen Welter to act as a linebacker intern coach. While Welter is entering an entirely male dominated field, she has no shortage of qualifications for the job. Welter holds a masters in sports psychology, in addition to a PhD in psychology. She also has played internationally as a professional women’s football player. Welter’s hiring brings to light the changing dynamics of many job fields in hiring women, as well as the future of these fields as many groups lobby for equal pay and opportunity for women in traditionally male dominated fields. [More]