Coming of age in family therapy talk: Perspective setting in multiparty problem formulations

Family therapy talk is a rich arena for intergenerational negotiations about family problems and adolescents’ privileges. Such negotiations are discussed here in terms of multiparty problem formulations that raise basic questions about who is entitled to diagnose adolescents’ “problems.” In therapy sequences, it is shown how adolescents’ problems are formulated in terms of blame allocations. On an underlying level, diagnostic negotiations also concern participant status; that is, who will be seen as a full participant and who will be cast as a peripheral participant or nonperson in family talk. In three case studies, it is demonstrated how the therapist acts as an orchestrator of therapy talk, reformulating problems in setting new perspectives between parents and children. In this reformulation process, therapists use a series of discursive strategies that exploit obliqueness in multiparty audience design.