Counseling and Advocacy

Studies show that the key philosophies of wellness, resilience, and prevention of a child that now suffers from living in a family of divorce will eventually gain a sense of identity, agency, and coherence overtime, negotiated with transition losses and new arrangements for relationships due to living together in a now subsequent family. A group of historical studies determines this outcome. In an article written by Gill Gorell Barnes describes a therapeutic way to help children with coping with a divorce, remarriage, and stepfamily living. His article describes a British study conducted at the National Child Development Cohort where fifty young adolescents were interviewed with follow-up interviews every five years (Barnes, 1999). Their sample was matched for age of entry into stepfamily for gender and stepmother / stepfather-headed families and drawn from eight different parts of the UK. The interviews lasted up to 3 to 6 hours in which were audio, transcribed, analyzed and subsequently published as a book “Growing up in Stepfamilies” (Barnes, 1999). Their analysis was committed to understand the lives of these particular families and how they survived.

The preferred counseling for Ashley would be family therapy. This practice developed in the mid 1950’s, although the developmental part of family therapy founded much earlier. In the discoveries of family therapy it is in fact, that family life does shapes a person personality. Family is the most influential as far as being a dominant force controlling a persons beliefs and it shows in ones behavioral pattern (Dattilio, Piercy , & Davis, 2014). In the very beginning of the family movement, very little distinction made between therapy practice and research. Family dysfunctions observed as ongoing patterns, which determined to be clinical observations as empirical evidence justifying their therapy models. “Action Research” was the basis for their interventions; therefor every case treated for its own individual