Family Therapy

FAMILY therapy studies of the past dozen years, as a recent review establishes,¹have predominantly reflected the Psychoanalytic viewpoint, even though striking departures from psychoanalytic theory and technique have been made by family therapists. For the most part, writers on technique²⁻⁷have essentially adhered to the view that to promote beneficial change in patients the therapist must formulate and communicate insights and work through unconscious resistances. Even such departures from Psychoanalytic technique as those described by Satir⁸and Minuchin⁹recently seem to this writer fundamentally insight-centered. Among major contributors to family therapy theory and practice today, only Haley¹⁰has offered a clear alternative to the "insight-centered model," although he is joined to an extent by Jackson¹¹and Brodey,¹²using somewhat different approaches. Haley maintains that the therapist secures beneficial change when he enforces a dominant position