Table 1.

Underlying principles of social worker brief counseling sessions for patients and family members

Core Tenets Underlying Conduct of Family Problem Solving Intervention (General)
• The act of participating in mutual discourse with others enables individuals to create meaning and purpose from their life experiences.
• Problem-solving conversations allow individuals to be involved in a mutual search for and creation of new solutions to their problems.
• A client system is composed of those who are joined for the purpose of dialogue around problems or issues of mutual concern. The clinician must enter into dialogue with the family to become part of the collective view needed to assist in creating new solutions with the family.
• The ways in which family members communicate with one another define their collective view about a problem.
• The role of the clinician is to create space for and facilitate conversations through which the family can find new meanings and mutually acceptable solutions for existing health problems.
Principles Specific to Family Problem Solving for LKT
• Discussion and education regarding all treatment options available to patients (including dialysis, deceased kidney transplantation, living related kidney transplantation, and living unrelated kidney transplantation) will occur.
• Encouragement of truly shared decision-making and avoidance of coercion of family members toward donation is a core component of discussions.