Process of Symptom Production and Patterns of Symptom Maintenance

In the search for the process of symptom production, on the one hand, and for the patterns of symptom maintenance, on the other, lies the key difference between the two main orientations in the field of family therapy; the psychodynamic and the system‐oriented approaches. They imply conceptual and operational hypotheses stemming from different logics, different sets of data, different lines of inquiry and, alas, different treatment strategies. Clearly distinctive traits of each of these two lines are discussed and exemplified, with special emphasis on the interactional, systemic view.