First-person testimonies from LGBTQ+ Christians about coming out and navigating their family dynamics What happens in a family when one member comes out? How does LGBTQ+ identity affect relationships with parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins? What does Christian love require and make possible for families moving forward together? A social scientist and a pastor, both from Galileo Church on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas, asked their LGBTQ+ friends from church to help them understand how they navigate relationships with their affirming, non-affirming, and affirming-ish families of origin, even as they also find belonging in other families of choice. The resulting stories, crafted from interviews with fifteen queer Christians and family members, kept anonymous at their request, are as varied as the colors of the rainbow. Over the years, some grew closer to their families of origin; others grew more distant. Some were surprised by the hardness of heart they encountered; others were amazed by the breadth of their family’s love. Most all describe a trajectory, a journey, from the coming-out moment till now and beyond, as their families of origin, like all families, remain a work in progress.

Testimonies for LGBTQ+ Christians and all who love them What happens in a family when one member comes out? How does LGBTQ+ identity affect relationships with parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins? What does Christian love require and make possible for families moving forward together? A social scientist and a pastor, both from Galileo Church on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas, asked their LGBTQ+ friends from church to help them understand how they navigate relationships with their affirming, non-affirming, and affirming-ish families of origin, even as they also find belonging in other families of choice. The resulting stories, crafted from interviews with fifteen queer Christians and family members, kept anonymous at their request, are as varied as the colors of the rainbow. Over the years, some grew closer to their families of origin; others grew more distant. Some were surprised by the hardness of heart they encountered; others were amazed by the breadth of their family's love. Most all describe a trajectory, a journey, from the coming-out moment till now and beyond, as their families of origin, like all families, remain a work in progress.

This book provides an original insight into how families of origin of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) people are involved in negotiating meanings and experiences of sexuality and intimacy, an underexplored dimension of queer family life. Delving into the perspectives of families of origin and showing the complexity and heterogeneity of the ways people with their different gender and sexual identities "do" families across generations, it contributes to queerying the very distinction between families of origin and families of choice and questions the (hetero)normative assumptions about forms and boundaries of family this distinction rests upon. A focus on marginal contexts, such as Southern Europe, and on marginal subjects, like bisexuals or black lesbians, is proposed as a way to challenge the universality of privileged narratives within heteronormativity, homonormativity and anglocentrism, and to reveal unexpected resources families of origin use to make sense of GLBT identities and lived experiences. The book poses a crucial question: how can alliances along family ties develop on the basis of shared stories of family diversity and marginalised identities, rather than of loving (and normative) support to GLBT people in need and an advocacy in their name from a position of heterosexual privilege? This book was originally published in Journal of GLBT Family Studies.

A novel by the author of the viral essay sensation "The Crane Wife": When Nolan Grey receives news that his father, a once-prominent biologist, has drowned off Leap's Island, he calls on Elsa, his estranged older half-sister, to help. This, despite the fact that it was he and Elsa who broke the family in the first place. Elsa and Nolan travel to their father's field station off the Gulf Coast, where a group called the Reversalists obsessively study the undowny bufflehead, a rare duck whose loss of waterproof feathers proves, they say, that evolution is running in reverse. On an island that is always looking backward, it's impossible for the siblings to ignore their past, and years of family secrecy threaten to ruin them all over again. Yet, despite themselves, the Greys urgently trek the island to find the so-called Paradise Duck, their father's final obsession, all the while grappling with questions of nature and nurture, intimacy and betrayal, progress and forgiveness.

Church reimagined for a new day Katie Hays, planter-pastor of Galileo Church, shares the story of departing from the traditional church for the frontier of the spiritual-but-not-religious and building community with Jesus-loving (or at least Jesus-curious) outsiders. Now well-established, Galileo Church “seeks and shelters spiritual refugees” in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas—especially young adults, LGBTQ+ people, and all the people who love them. Told in funny, poignant, and short vignettes, Galileo's story is not one of how to be cool for Christ. Like its founder, Galileo is deeply uncool and deeply devout, and always straining ahead to see what God will do next. Hays says curiosity is her greatest virtue, and she recounts how her curiosity led her to share the good news with people who are half her age and intensely skeptical. If you are all-in with Jesus but have trust issues with church, We Were Spiritual Refugees will give you hope for finding a community-of-belonging to call home.

This authoritative reference assembles prominent international experts from psychology, social work, and counseling to summarize the current state of couple and family therapy knowledge in a clear A-Z format. Its sweeping range of entries covers major concepts, theories, models, approaches, intervention strategies, and prominent contributors associated with couple and family therapy. The Encyclopedia provides family and couple context for treating varied problems and disorders, understanding special client populations, and approaching emerging issues in the field, consolidating this wide array of knowledge into a useful resource for clinicians and therapists across clinical settings, theoretical orientations, and specialties. A sampling of topics included in the Encyclopedia: Acceptance versus behavior change in couple and family therapy Collaborative and dialogic therapy with couples and families Integrative treatment for infidelity Live supervision in couple and family therapy Postmodern approaches in the use of genograms Split alliance in couple and family therapy Transgender couples and families The first comprehensive reference work of its kind, the Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy incorporates seven decades of innovative developments in the fields of couple and family therapy into one convenient resource. It is a definitive reference for therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors, whether couple and family therapy is their main field or one of many modalities used in practice.

Considers the family-of-origin approach to the psychiatric counselling of adults in marital, family and individual therapy. The text discusses theoretical and clinical implications and provides three case studies to illustrate the application of this method.