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HE family has long had a paradoxical position in the theory and prac-T tice of psychotherapy. Family relationships have long been recognized as significant in psychopathology, especially of children, and yet theoretical formulations have failed to integrate the intrapsychic and interpersonal aspects of behavior (16). The practice of psychiatry has always been ahead of theory in taking account of the network of relationships the patient is involved in, but again not in a systematic way. The child guidance movement has been in the vanguard in working toward a more inclusive approach, but even there a truly family-centered theory and practice are still to be achieved. Most striking has been the bias toward consideration of the mother-child relationship in etiological formulations, and toward treatment of mother and child to the exclusion of the father, as Pollak (10) has documen ted.One of the difficulties hampering the development of better integrated therapy is the inadequacy of our models for treating parents when the child is the raison d'ttre of treatment. In the 1930's there was considerable discussion of how mothers should be approached; whether maternal attitudes, the mother-child relationship, or the mother should be the focus of treatment. All the while the father was in limbo, rarely seen, and seldom considered as important as the mother. Currently fathers are coming into the treatment picture more frequently, and similar problems are being encountered in how to treat them (1,2,9, 11,12, 17,19).

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