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The article presents the author's reflects on the work of the Journal of Family Therapy as it celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 1998. The strong representation of the psychiatric profession as well as the eminence of the authors may contribute to the general impression of a lack of self-doubt, self-questioning or uncertainty that emerges from these contributions. Overall there is more of a tendency to discuss changes of thinking rather than major changes in clinical style. One theme is how the evolving social and economic contexts for clinical practice affect the development of theory and practice. In relation to theoretical developments, a strong streak of British pragmatism is still discernible. Perhaps what is most interesting is that many of the contributors seem to be so loyal to the ideas they put forward in 1979. Many of the original papers had the work psychoanalysis in their titles. Nevertheless, it came as quite a shock to me that not even lip-service has been paid to those developments which have perhaps above all others unleashed the creative potential of systemic therapy. The influences of feminist thinking and social constructionist ideas have a vast amount to contribute not only to an understanding of self-in-system but have been incorporated in creative and positive ways into collaborative models of therapeutic practice.

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In this paper the principal English-language family therapy journals published in 2004 are reviewed under the following headings: evidence-based practice, common factors in effective therapy, innovations in family therapy, innovations in couples therapy, training, gender, diversity, international developments, terrorism, and historical transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the author's thinking from a model of systemic practice based on a `survival' model with its roots in psychoanalysis, to one based on the promotion of greater tolerance of difference within the family. The use of a particular form of conversation with children, as a route to this goal, is illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper in the first issue of the Journal of Family Therapy outlined some ideas which have continued to form the basis of my practice of family therapy ever since. Using the psychoanalytic concept of `counter-transference' I suggested that opening themselves to the emotional interaction of the family will usually lead to a reproduction of the essential basic family conflict within the therapists' own psyches. In this way the therapist takes on the role assumed by many `family scapegoats', expressing some emotion `for' the family which other members dare not articulate or even entertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some commonalities in the current state of psychoanalysis and family therapy in Britain. It argues that there have been social changes within Britain that have increased the popularity of the practices and concepts of psychotherapy and counselling. The methods and ideas of psychoanalysis seem to be the major influence in this process which is manifest, for the most part, within private therapy and counselling and in the universities. It appears that family therapists and the institutes of psychoanalysis act as if unaware of this pragmatic acceptance of psychoanalytic thinking. The two disciplines of family therapy and psychoanalysis remain organizationally and conceptually disassociated from each other despite the two subjects having considerable overlap, plying adjacent trades and using theoretical ideas which show considerable parallels. The paper proposes that postmodern thinking is, potentially, an evolving link between the two forms of thinking and therapy but that the theories of both psychoanalysis and family therapy require empirical evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine aspects of the permeability of time, with a view to exploring our perceptions of ourselves as present–focused distinct individuals. Permeability of time is defined as time’s fluidity, its ability to move across boundaries of past, present and future. Fluidity, in this sense, is our capacity to experience past, present and future simultaneously. Time will be examined from both psychoanalytic and systemic viewpoints. Issues of time and timelessness, consciousness and memory will be raised and the usefulness of working from an affective base discussed. The case cited in the paper is one in which the family was in the stage of having an adolescent child. Adolescence will therefore be discussed as it relates to the issue of time. The clinical discussion will be based on an integration of the two theoretical perspectives as they relate to time and affect. In conclusion I will revisit the question of our perception of ourselves as present–focused distinct individuals within a family context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the idea of truth, its place in therapy and in the history of systemic theory. Beginning with some practice fragments, the theory exploration considers the idea of truth in the modernist frame, the paradox of the modernist metaphor in describing the activity of therapy, and the peculiarities of the idea of truth in the earlier systemic therapies. Postmodernist and social constructionist ideas are then explored, and meaning is identified as the concept which currently occupies the place of an idea of truth in systemic discourse. It is argued that meaning as a concept is insufficiently attached to an idea of (external) reality or to an understanding of the relationship of the individual to knowledge of her/his experience of the world. Reclaiming the idea of truth as an emotional and social process has more potential to meet the complexities of human experience in thinking about the process of therapeutic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a common ground between psychoanalysis and family therapy is discussed in terms of postmodern theorizing in both disciplines. Recent systemic, narrative or social constructionist thinking in psycho-analysis and a psychoanalytic turn in family therapy offers the possibility of a shared epistemology. This is described in terms of a critical not-knowing stance which allows for the therapist's/analyst's contribution of meaning, interpretation and knowledge in therapeutic conversation. Here the holding of not knowing and knowing together provides a narrative container for personal meaning and thinking to develop. This `knowing not to know' is what a postmodern psychoanalysis has in common with family therapy: both are ways of being with persons to help them develop and hold their own knowing. This therapeutic process is illustrated in a clinical vignette of narrative child family therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a model of family therapy that draws on experiences and theories of psychoanalysis as applied to individuals and groups. It suggests concepts that help to understand and work with the family as a system. A brief example is given to illustrate the effort to engage with the patients' immediate feelings in the session in relation to each other and the therapist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents three pieces of work, all focused around a person presenting with a long history of disordered eating patterns. One treatment was a couple therapy, one a family plus individual therapy and the third a purely individual therapy. The three different psychotherapies demonstrate an approach which uses psychoanalytic as well as family therapy thinking and techniques. The material is offered to show examples of the clinical practice within which individual and couple or family therapy constitute a range of psychotherapeutic responses to people and, in particular, to people with eating disorders. The context of the therapy is described in some detail as it accounts for many features of the treatments, for example, that they are justified within the institution by having been subject to empirical investigation. A metaphor, that of the medieval castle, is offered as an evocation of the experience of the person that is relevant in the practice of both individual and family therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to highlight a common experience, but neglected topic, in family therapy: that of feeling understood. Aspects of postmodernism and contemporary psychoanalysis are revisited to create a theme of understanding as a fully relational activity—making sense together through language of that which lies beyond language. Some ideas on preparing to try to understand are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the therapeutic relationship in systemic therapy and, more specifically, about engagement as a process. Beginning with some practice examples, a critique is made of the way in which both the therapeutic relationship and engagement have been under-theorized in systemic therapy. Two different sets of ideas are used to develop some thinking about the process of engagement: the notion of the ‘good-enough’ engagement as the environment or frame of therapy is developed, and the systemic concept of sequences is held alongside the psychoanalytic ideas of transference, countertransference and projective identification. This theory discussion is used to reflect on the original practice examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores aspects of the theory and practice of psychotherapy with the aim of identifying similarities in the approaches of both family therapists and psychoanalytic psychotherapists. The author calls for a dialogue between the disciplines, and makes specific reference to the potential value of this in relation to training and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current issue of power and intervention in family therapy from the perspective of Jacques Derrida's philosophy. In a deconstructive reading which presents power as both real and socially constructed, it negotiates the border between such dualities as knowing! not-knowing, intervention/non-intervention, and power/non-power. The paper tracks Goolishian and Anderson's approach to therapy as deconstructive in practice, but not in theory, and discusses a double view of power in relation to both Bateson and Foucault. It suggests that power is both endemic to the context of family therapy and an illusion of epistemology. The paper concludes with a discussion of the wider question of ethics in relation to technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the place that dream material has occupied in therapy, and particularly family therapy. A rationale will be given for the inclusion of this source of information by systemic therapists. The use of dreams in systemic therapy with individuals, couples and families is described. Dreams are divided into five main categories: those that precipitate therapy, provide hypotheses, as memories, relationship dreams, and those that reflect the process of change. Each category is described and illustrated with relevant clinical material. The paper concludes with a method for working with dreams that is congruent with a systemic perspective applicable to individual, conjoint or family therapy sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Ericksonian hypnotherapy is epistemologically at variance with the systems theory underlying most forms of family therapy. This incompatibility is not often realized, because of other shared assumptions such as focusing on positives, and the utilization of presenting behaviour. The paper highlights the epistemological differences between Systems and Ericksonian thinking and presents the concept of attribution of meaning as a possible way out of the difficulties which arise when these two opposing modes of thought are mixed in therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Postmodernism’ has made a substantial impact on various schools of psychotherapy, including family therapy. ‘Postmodern’ therapists tend to focus on the productive capacities of language, developing narrative styles for their work. ‘Postmodern’ family therapy is differentiated from modernist approaches by its disavowal of truth claims and its encouragement of alternative ‘voices’ or narratives. In this paper, it is argued that this represents too narrow an approach to psychotherapy and to postmodernism. Postmodernism takes as a central concern the limits of symbolization, so a postmodernist therapy would deal primarily with failures of language. Language-based therapeutic procedures such as those to be found in family therapy are consequently not postmodernist. This state of affairs should be welcomed, as a truly ‘postmodern’ mode of therapy would probably celebrate irrationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it is argued that modern and postmodern positions on reality and knowledge should not create a theoretical division in family therapy and that rather, by harnessing the two together, each may restrain the other. This combination creates the potential for drawing widely from the whole field of family therapy as well as challenging the separation of mainstream family therapy models from psychoanalysis. The concept of better story is used to replace both the polarized modern position of an objective discoverable truth and the polarized postmodern position of all stories having equal validity. It is suggested that better stories, which evolve in the meeting of family and therapist, may include those which are more congruent, object-adequate, encompassing, holding, shared, emotional, conscious, just, provisional and hopeful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that a stage in treatment common in all successful approaches to therapy is the precipitating of some degree of crisis, and that failure to provoke an element of crisis in terms of behaviour or beliefs in the family represents a ‘crisis’ for the therapist. Before considering the different approaches of three major schools of family therapy, it is first suggested that, at a more abstract level, ‘the patterns which connect’ (Bateson, 1979) the different schools provide a unifying framework to understand one of the aims of therapy. This is the intention to challenge established patterns to precipitate crisis. Three models of Family Therapy, Structural, Strategic, and Milan/Systemic, are outlined and their manner of precipitating crises described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that differing theoretical constructs offer a variety of rich approaches when responding to the problems families present. To work exclusively within one theoretical framework is to deny oneself the value latent in other models, and thus restrict one's therapeutic competence. It is suggested that various family therapy models can be worked together without contradiction if they are subsumed in an overriding systems approach. It is also pointed out that the various models have particular capabilities and limitations with differing therapeutic goals. Ten interviews with one family are used to illustrate an eclectic approach in therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we review the development of our team's thinking and demonstrate it through our approach to a particular family. This approach integrates theoretical models, the resources of the team members and the family's belief system. Analytic and structural models give an understanding of the family's problems. A behavioural intervention, integrated with this understanding, enabled us to circumvent the family's investment in failure and to negotiate avoided developmental tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the crying episodes of twenty-eight clients treated at a family therapy service in a community centre. The crying episodes were associated with some significant elements: the time of appearance, the content and triggering factor, the interpersonal context of sessions and the emotions clients had for the therapist, as well as the therapy's outcome (end of treatment and the satisfaction of clients). Crying was much more frequent during the first session. It occurred more frequently when there was another family member present. The proportion of clients who cried during the treatment was significantly higher for clients who completed it successfully. Clients who cried perceived the therapist, in all cases, as a kind person who never got annoyed with them. Crying could be considered a type of behaviour that helps the therapist to create a safe context and foster the therapeutic alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores ideas about threes and the triadic space of reflection. Early family therapy theory offered rich ideas about triadic relationship patterns. Contemporary practice frameworks have generated reflective therapeutic practices and an attention to reflexivity. Meanwhile, a contemporary theory constellation allied with psychoanalysis has studied the capacity for 'thirdness' in intersubjective relating, reflective functioning and mentalization, and the triadic space of thinking. The article reviews this psychoanalytic theory, explores symbolic thirdness alongside actual triadic relating, and maps an understanding of the space of reflection as triadic and relational. Thinking about the space of reflection as triadic and relational offers one way of orienting ourselves to reflective processes and an inclusive frame for valuing both the earlier family therapy attention to relationship patterns and the different, current contemporary family therapy practices of reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question posed in this article is how the therapist should deal with strong emotions she might experience in the session. This question is especially important if it concerns emotions that -at least on the surfacecannot be considered to contribute to a therapeutic alliance. We offer some reflections as preliminary steps towards answering this question and propose that therapists be sensitive to their own experiencing during the session, be careful to monitor the implicit invitations to join the family members in potentially destructive relational scenarios, reflect on the possible negative and perpetuating effects of her interactions with the family, and explore opportunities to proceed with the session in new and more constructive ways. In our approach the therapist's experiencing is seen as a tool that may be used to further the therapeutic process. This is consonant with the view of family therapists exploring the importance for the therapist of holding open a space of reflection, while it also fits with a dialogical approach to family therapy, in which the therapist's task may be described as listening to the stories the clients tell, and making room for other stories that have not been told before. Two case discussions illustrate our ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epistemological turn towards social constructionism has become well established within the field of family systemic therapy. Social constructionism has provided therapists with a theoretical rationale for the concentration upon the social context within which individuals and families live their lives. This is a philosophical position that pushes to the margins the positivist premise that individuals have fixed and measurable personalities in favour of a discourse which proposes that the person is encountered differently within different social contexts. Prompted by the growing interest in systemic practice with individuals and by the rediscovery of the psychoanalytic canon within family therapy literature, the adequacy of this position is examined and an attempt is made to open up a space within social constructionist discourse for a theory of individual subjectivity. Findings from a research project are the starting point for this venture. These findings are understood through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, with particular reference to the work of Jacques Lacan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Gregory Bateson's interest in emotion and culture, the potential for understanding emotion systemically and culturally was lost very early in the mainstream development of family therapy, partly as a reaction to the dominant psychiatric-psychoanalytic paradigm of North America at the time. In those pioneering years, to take emotion seriously was to risk appearing stuck in a one-person psychology. In an interesting paradox, it is relational psychoanalysts and parent-infant researchers such as Beatrice Beebe and Frank Lachmann who have recently turned to systems theory to give a fuller account of emotions and emotional regulation in self and relationships. The author draws on their ideas together with the work of Peter Fonagy, Patricia Crittenden, Jessica Benjamin, Britt Krause and others to sketch briefly an ecosystemic theory of emotional expression. This sketch is used to give contextual meaning to two contrasting clinical topics in relation to anger: self-harm and conduct 'disorder'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While today many therapists try to integrate different therapeutic models, it does not seem easy to define the specific clinical features of each model. In this article, the practice of systemic individual therapy is compared to the psychoanalytic practice of transference analysis. The relevant distinction is found in the different use of third parties within the therapeutic frame. In systemic therapy, the third party is ‘presentified’ within the therapeutic dialogue, which becomes centred on external relationships, while in transference analysis the third party is subsumed to the therapeutic (transferential) relationship, which is considered the core of therapy. The practical consequences of those two different ‘technologies of the self’ are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments of the author on the article by Fiona Brodie and John Wright with a commitment to a psychoanalytically informed practice. The author writes from a different viewpoint: as a systemic family therapist who finds particular ideas from psychoanalysis useful in addressing aspects of practice that he thinks lie beyond current systemic understandings. The author has not been interested in this response in entering a discussion of whether a systemic family therapy which uses psychoanalytic ideas in conditional and strategic ways is better or worse than a psychoanalytically informed family therapy. This is not the least because comparative outcome studies of helpful therapy consistently point to the much greater importance of generic rather than framework--specific factors in therapy. At the same time, he thinks that Brodie and Wright are right in pointing out the very different location of psychoanalytic ideas and practices within the context of psychoanalytic family therapy.

The article discusses the topics published within the issue, including one on the implication of psychoanalytic therapies for some systems therapists and another on the relationship between therapists and client.