Theorist Betty Carter

Life, work and theory of the theorist Betty Carter
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Life
Betty Carter was one of the founder remembers of the Multicultural Family Institute, acting as a teacher as well as a mentor to other family therapists. According to McGoldrick (2012), Carter liked discussions about the family systems theory, and this could explain her fascination with families. Betty Carter was of Irish Catholic decent, and in the 1970’s she became more interested in becoming a family therapist. During this time period, she authored a book on family therapy, and started collaborating with other family therapists, and the most prominent Monica M. McGoldrick being a personal friend and fellow author. Such collaborations provided the basis, for Carter to argue that there is need to focus beyond long-established family life cycles norms and individualized human development (McGoldrick, 2012). Carter’s resolve to highlight on the need for equality laid credence to the role that strong relationships play in family life and the society.
Even though, Betty Carter’s mother suggested that she would be better placed being a nurse or a nun, she found her way to Munich Germany working for Radio Liberty during the Cold War (McGoldrick, 2012). Carter was reportedly close to her father who had suffered polio as a child, and this probably drew her to work with disabled adults. Carter also supported her autistic younger son, and it was only natural that she championed for the rights of minorities. Carter’s resolve to highlight on the need for equality, lay credence to the role that strong relationships play in family life and the society. Carter and McGoldrick also mentioned the need for family therapists to differentiate themselves in families as this helps them to avoid misjudging their clients (Cohen, 2011).
Work
Betty Carter was renowned as a Bowen family therapist and feminist. Having worked as the director of the Family Institute of Westchester in New York (FIW), her contribution in family therapy was immense. One of the most notable contributions on family therapy was on gender issues, the effect of differentiation in death and loss and appreciation for cultural diversity. At the same time, Betty Carter together with other theorists proposed and formulated the family life cycle perspective. Her work contributed towards proposing ways through which cultural divergent couples and families could resolve their issues. One of the ways to resolve issues in a family was the use of a family map (genogram), and this helps to highlight on the emotional processes of families as well as the family structure. In other words in the process of a family merging and blending, there are issues that arise, and the therapist takes such issues into account.
Carter’s work in FIW highlighted her beliefs that the family system did affect subsequent generations and hence strong family ties were important. Through focusing on the phases of the Family Life Cycle, Betty Carter highlighted on social factors that affected families besides generational experience (FIW, 2015). For fellow family therapists, the work of Betty Carter emphasized on the role o...