The Negative Essay: What Is Family Therapy?

2. WHAT IS "FAMILY THERAPY"?

Be ye as the fingers of one hand.
- Bahá 'u' llah, Hidden Words

Looking at recent publications, one has the impression that family therapy is a new concoction from the psychotherapist's alchemic kitchen. It is met with diverse reactions. Some regard it suspiciously, seeing it as a deviation from traditional therapeutic methods; others praise it as an important advance in the treatment of psychoses. Still others view it as a special method for dealing with children.
The conventional view of family therapy is a narrow one. According to this view, therapy treats an entire group - at least father, mother, and child - not just an individual patient. In the therapeutic situation, these family members present a major component of their everyday life.
But this kind of process has only limited application. It cannot be carried out, for instance, if the original family no longer exists, if members of the family are unwilling to start therapy, or if the tensions in the family are so great that it is impossible to gather the group under one therapeutic roof.
This is why we try not to look at family therapy simply as a particular therapeutic arrangement. Instead, we interpret it as a special way of thinking, one that does

A preventive (family) therapy, on the other hand, must of necessity be a "positive" family therapy. It doesn't just look at the areas where there is a disorder; it also considers the capabilities that exist in the individual and in the family. In its original meaning the word positive (Latin positum) refers to the factual, the given. The "givens'' are not necessarily conflicts and disorders, but can also be the capabilities that each person carries within him. In therapy we are interested primarily in man's capacity for self-help and his ability to deal with