Family Therapy

Abstract

Professional therapists, researchers, and other students of psychotherapy have long been curious about many questions relevant to the field: What constitutes a psychological problem, how could that problem be classified, what differentiates that problem from all others, what is the etiology of the problem, what are developmental sequelae of the problem, what is the most efficacious treatment approach, what is resilience, what is mental health, and many others. One particular question of interest has had to do with the unit identified as the patient. Whereas traditionally this unit was an individual, the emergence of the family therapy movement shifted that focus away from the individual and toward the family as the unit and the focus of study and treatment.