The aim of this article is to make attachment research findings available in a form that family therapists can use. In attachment theory, parents are conceptualized as providing a secure base from which a child can explore. Family therapists, however, need a systemic concept that goes beyond the parent/child dyad. The concept of a secure family base is proposed, in which a network of care is made available for all family members of whatever age so that all family members feel secure enough to explore, in the knowledge that support is available if needed. Factors that contribute to the security or insecurity of the family base are outlined. The overall aim of therapy is to establish a secure family base from which the family can explore new solutions to family problems both during and after therapy. The role of the therapist is to help to resolve conflicts that threaten relationships, and to explore relevant belief systems that may be contributing to a sense of insecurity. The conceptual framework presented allows for an integration of family therapy techniques and ideas into a coherent whole. A new school of family therapy is not proposed.

In this article, I will explore how parentfication, in which children take on parental roles, develops within the context of insecure attachments. I argue that parentification is more prevalent than is generally supposed. Adaptive parentfication is differentiated from destructive parentification, which is associated with a range of childhood problems. In this article, attachment theory is placed within a family systems framework and family concepts are described, such as a secure family base and family scripts, which can help to understand parentification. The ways in which two attachment relationships--insecure/ambivalent and insecure/controlling--contribute to parentification processes are delineated. Transgenerational patterns are discussed. Family therapy can provide a preventive intervention aimed at reducing current parentification and interrupting transgenerational transmission. A central aim is to reduce the need for a parent to turn to a child for care. To this end, work can be done to resolve conflicts between parents, thus freeing them to provide sufficient mutual support to each other. Children need to be detriangulated from the parental relationship. Working with transgenerational patterns, including work with grandparents, is recommended. Therapy with a family with a preschool child illustrates these issues as well as the prevention of the establishment of destructive parentification.

This article describes how family therapists can routinely address the important, but often overlooked, issue of how some children may play parental roles in families. In some situations such as inadequate or absent parenting, a child is drawn into the parental subsystem and becomes identified as a ‘little parent’ in a process known as parentification. As well as gaining competence in caring, this experience may also become destructive to children in a number of ways. This includes loss of childhood and, as children are unable to fulfil the parental role adequately, low self‐esteem, depression and other symptoms. The concept of family attachment scripts is used to understand the implications of a child crossing adult/child boundaries which can lead to looking after parents and siblings. Family therapy techniques help to redress the role reversal and enable the parents to take appropriate responsibility in the family. Work also focuses on how to prevent transmission of parentification down the generations. Therapists have often been parental children. How this can influence their work is illustrated by a specific case.

Protective family scripts prescribe interaction that the family believes is needed to avoid potentially dangerous scenarios. Certain family legends provide moral tales that illustrate these dangers and hence reinforce these scripts. Together they contribute to family mythology. In the absence of adequate research data about specific effects of particular interventions, the therapist has to rely on his or her own beliefs about what works to change unhelpful family beliefs and interaction patterns. This essay examines the interplay between the two belief systems by exploring one of the author's own family legends and then seeing how its injunctions have been played out in his family therapy practice, thereby illustrating how myths and protective practices may be set up within the field of family therapy and its training.

a This paper's aim is to enable family therapists from whatever approach to address family attachments during their work. It explores the role of attachment in the family, and how to enable therapists to increase security in the family so that family members can solve their own problems during and after therapy. The article gives a brief overview of the nature of family attachment relationships and the influence of secure and insecure attachments within the family and their narrative styles. This is described in language that a therapist might readily hold in mind and share the ideas in dialogue with families. The paper discusses the interplay between insecure attachments and other family problems, such as parental conflict and disagreements over authority. It also discusses ways of establishing a secure therapeutic base and the influence of the therapist's own attachment style. The implications for family therapy practice are described and illustrated by work with a specific family.