Abstract
Forty-five adolescent boys from abusive and depriving homes were not doing well in positive peer culture residential care. Despite their backgrounds, given a modified form of the Relational Ethics Scale, they indicated that their relational life with their families of origin was trustworthy, fair, and worthy of continued devotion. In contrast, on the Firo-B these same boys demonstrated distrust of others outside of their families and an unwillingness to get involved. These results support the inference from contextual family theory that peer group interventions cannot bypass identification and resolution of the injustices that took place in the family of origin.
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This project was fully supported by Teen Ranch, Inc., Marlette, MI 48453.
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Lee, R.E. Availability to peer group treatment in residential care as a function of relational ethics. Contemp Fam Ther 17, 343–348 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02252671
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02252671