This article is based on accumulated clinical experience in Israel with families that emigrated from the former Soviet Union. It describes a culturally sensitive systemic intervention with two such families: a single-parent family, and a family that exhibited physical violence. Relevant cultural characteristics of family patterns and parent-child relationships in Jewish-Soviet families are reviewed. It is demonstrated how a cross-cultural perspective may affect the interpretation of presented problems and result in a less pathological perspective. It is further illustrated how universal intervention techniques combined with culturally sensitive approaches may produce positive effects in therapy.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand and compare two immigrant families whose children perceived their families to be well-functioning, and two families whose children perceived them to be poor-functioning. The method of analysis used for studying the values of the families is based on SYMLOG. Four families, who immigrated to Israel during the early seventies from the former USSR, and whose adolescents were born in Israel, were interviewed. The results show that in the two "well-functioning" families, there is a high degree of consensus on their values-those that they accept, as well as, those that they reject. The two "poor-functioning" families did not exhibit identical value patterns--neither in the values that they favor, nor in those that they reject. In terms of content, in the well-functioning families, there was a strong expression of two values: friendliness and the desirability of self-sacrifice in order to reach family goals. In contrast, in the poor-functioning families, the value of conservatism was salient. Finally, all four families expressed strong opposition to the values of strong individualism and nonconformity. Suggestions for family intervention are offered.

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