Family Therapy: Out from Behind the Hero Narrative

Abstract

Schools of family therapy have been highly selective in their presentation of the theory/practice nexus. Family therapy's method of teaching (the infamous workshop format) has hampered it's growth as a practice and academic discipline. An inadvertent, unhelpful legacy of Gregory Bateson has been that lesser scholars have aped his capacity to draw on other fields of knowledge without his rigour, or his propriety. Family therapy's cavalier dealings with bodies of knowledge and its reliance on miraculous case studies has resulted in the bypassing of individual suffering. The heroic narrative that has dominated family therapy has precluded other styles of stories for therapists, theorists and clients. Family therapy has been dominated by the myth of the hero, with its accompanying motif of the puer eternus (the eternal youth). Family therapy has been forever reinventing itself, forever the ‘new kid on the block’. This fascination with newness has interfered with family therapy's capacity, at times, to consolidate its genuine value as a therapeutic entity.

Unconscious sequences in child protection work: case studies of professionals' experiences of child removal

“…For many of us, the defining task of our therapeutic practice is a quest to help our clients make more congruent meanings out of the events of their lives. At our most optimistic, we seek to help our clients find their way to piecing together stories of tragedy into narratives and sequences that make life, at best, more liveable and, at worst, slightly less frightening (Byng-Hall, 1997;Gibney, 1999;Flaskas, 2002bFlaskas, , 2005Pocock, 2005;Dallos, 2006aDallos, , 2006bByrne & McCarthy, 2007;Flaskas, 2007a). It would make sense, then, that we also come to try to find our way in making sense of our clients, and their relating to us, in a form that serves this admirable (Rober, 1999;Flaskas, 2002aFlaskas, , pp.…”

Using Tape Measures in Family Therapy: An Exploration of the Global Assessment of Relational Functioning

“…Yet for clinicians, practical considerations, such as lack of support, resources, expertise or time, may further discourage the adopting of a research perspective. Yet despite these controversies the need for sound family therapy research remains (Gibney, 1999).…”

History of Family Therapy

“…And the beginning of our practice had moved in the direction of promotion of cultural affirmation, social reconstruction and relief of individual suffering, involving a combination of the cognitive-mediational orientation with the western family practice. Hence the following comment by Moshe Lang that "Family therapy is a good enough name so long as we remember that it is not always about families and it is not always about therapy" (Gibney, 1999:33) appears to be an excellent way of representing the initial and the continuing thrust of our practice. For at the core of our beginning are concerns about how Africa can open up its traditional cultures to the modern world, and how to get our people ready with a certain multiple consciousness needed for a responsible and meaningful life in a globalized world.…”