State of the Art — 1973

Abstract

In summary, it can be said that progress is being made in the field, but slowly. The ‘art’ is vigorous, vital and exciting. The ranks of family therapists are swelling and they are coming from backgrounds of different theoretical persuasions and with varying degrees of sophistication in their training and education. This mélange does lead to excitement and turbulence but often detracts from the necessary rigour that a scientific discipline must develop in order to reach maturity. Systems theory allows for easy conceptualization of one another's behaviour in the system, and permits a much clearer understanding of the therapeutic process based upon it, in contrast to therapeutic approaches based on other models. The authors found negotiation to be therapeutically effective when made explicit. In addition they place the focus on the ‘here and now’ and encourage the increased labeling by family members of interactions (affective and behavioural) and their effects (affective and behavioural), according to the Family Categories Schema previously referred to. Efforts are directed especially towards dealing with the current resistances to problem solutions. Epstein et al. have reported on an ongoing program of research which attempts to examine the process and outcome of family therapy (7,10,21,22,25,26). What is needed now is a more rigorous approach to research and the development of a necessary theoretical base in order that a more systematic and scientific approach can be developed for treating families.