From"Treating the Child"to"Healing the Family":Gendered Practices of Family Therapy with Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
This paper focuses on the increasing popularity of family therapy with families raising children with autism spectrum disorder(ASD).It explores how,in the absence of sufficient social support,the burden of care compels parents to shift their focus from a life pro-ject centered on"treating the child"to"healing the family".Through participant observation of activities centered on family therapy for familial caregivers of children with ASD and interviews with the caregiver-participants in City B in the Pearl River Delta area,the study aims to illustrate how family therapy helps parents through facilitated intimate interactions to relocate their children's symptoms from the perspective of"pathology of family".The study attempts to highlight that for mothers of children with ASD,conditions for their care not only serve as the impetus and context for seeking family therapy but also impose constraints on its practice.The gendered division of care work not only engenders gendered"anxieties",but also in turn,turns the reconfiguration of intimate relationships into women's self-trans-formation through gendered affective practices.
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