to having to testify in court. Indeed, they report that it should be considered part of professional practice to understand these legalities, and therapists should be given training in these matters both during and after their professional education in therapy/counseling skills.
Moreover, Peterson and Nisenholz (1994) state that therapists must be aware of not only the legal but the ethical implications of working with families in situations of child abuse. In this regard, they point out that this awareness should encompass a systems perspective; that is the therapist must realize he or she is not only dealing with a family system but with a system that interacts with a variety of external institutional and bureaucratic systems, any of one of which can be affected by and/or affect therapeutic objectives and strategies.
Another issue that arises in family therapy for child abuse is making sure that the child is safe. In some cases, this is taken care of by the court; however, in other cases, especially those where the abuse is uncovered as part of the family therapy process, the therapist must decide how to respond to the situation for the protection of the child.
Clearly, if the law has been violated, it is the therapist's obligation to report this. However, as noted by Chesnay (1984), there remain a number of issues that must be dealt with. These include: family privacy versus the child's rights, practical versus legal definitions of the problem, patriarchy versus autonomy, and incarceration of the offender versus leaving him at home. Chesnay contends that it is crucial for the therapist to resolve these issues before treatment can be effective.
Even in situations where there are legal violations of the law, the therapist must deal with the family's definition of the situation as a problem; some families, Chesnay (1984) reports, do not automatically consider the fact that their physical (or even sexual) abuse of...