T he enormously increased use of family therapy and family counselling over almost three decades has generated much valuable research into patterns offamily functioning and psychopathology, and into the family's role in health and disease (1,2). Despite this, there is still no overriding model of family functioning within which these clinical insights and empirical findings can be integrated (3,4). Many of the existing models have developed in isolation from each other (3), and all but a few have failed to incorporate generally accepted knowledge of individual psychopathology. Despite several recent attempts (5,6), the interface between the family system and pathology existing within individual members (that is, individual subsystems) has generally been ignored, so that individual and family approaches to formulation and treatment have developed separately and often, antagonistically, despite numerous calls from both individual and family therapists to integrate two different but complementary approaches to the understanding and modification of human behavior (3,7-10). This is reflected in the absence of any standardized assessment procedure for diagnosing family mental health or pathology (II).Current literature reviews indicate a growing agreement on the essential dimensions of family functioning (12). The Family Categories Schema (13) and its later version -the McMaster Model of Family Functioning (14) -have provided the starting point for the present model. While respecting that model's pioneering contribution to providing an organizing structure, the authors felt the need for a more process-oriented and dynamic model that satisfied the following criteria: Such a model would clearly distinguish between theories of family functioning and approaches to family treatment, so that it would be equally capable of describing successful and unsuccessful patterns of family structure and functioning. It would allow a useful summary and integration of the various clinical and research findings available to date. It would provide a dynamic and process-oriented conceptual framework to guide clinical assessment, ongoing treatment and continuing research, by defining universal dimensions of family functioning and describing how these interact with each other. It would encourage clinicians to integrate systems, psychoanalytic, attachment, social learning and crisis theories of development and psychopathology ([5). Since no single model at this stage can, in itself, explain the full richness of individual and family psychopathology, it should be compatible with other models of family and individual psychopathology, and at least begin the attempt to define the interface between them. Finally, such a model would encourage the generation of new and researchable hypotheses and insights into the structure and processes of family functioning. Since real families are neither entirely healthy nor entirely pathological, it would assist in describing the family that functioned well in some areas but poorly in others, as well as differe...
