The Milan Approach, History, and Evolution

Abstract

The two authors intend to underline the continuities and discontinuities that organize the Milan Approach, after the splitting from Selvini Palazzoli and Prata; they intend to tell the teachings of Luigi Boscolo and Gianfranco Cecchin from the beginning of training in 1978 till nowadays. After having spoken of some important stages in the work till the death of the two masters, the article underlines two major new aspects. 1. We speak about the corporeal turn: embodied experience as preconceptual know‐how from which concepts are structured. We speak about the connections between bodies and social issues that enact forms of knowledge and understanding. 2. In this period of war, violence, and tyranny, we speak about epistemology and ontology as complementary stances: the need to let others disclose themselves, by allowing them to speak their own terms of engagement. The therapeutic effort is one of deactivating the dangers of one’s own presuppositions and prejudices that limit one’s capacity to describe and make hypothesis. There are social ontologies, communities with strong moral intensity, historical and social realities that need therapists to take position, since they need to take side and be aware of the categories they utilize. Historical and social ontology deals with the continuous change of symptoms in connection to the continuous change of the social panorama in the context we live in. We live by the bodies we are.

The influence of the Milan approach: Five decades of intergenerational change. A conversation with Matteo Selvini

“…Mara studied international literature with many contacts in the United States and so developed her thinking in family therapy separately from a psychoanalytic lens. At the beginning of the 1970s, she formed a famous group with Boscolo, Cecchin, and Prata in this new systemic and very provocative approach (Barbetta & Telfener, 2021;Campbell et al, 1991;Dishon-Brown, 2017). What was scientifically interesting and impressed my mother greatly was observing that a large percentage of anorexic girls abandoned their symptoms only after a few family sessions, which demonstrated working with the whole family could be an extremely powerful method.…”

“…Deisy Amorin-Woods: And it was established in 1970? … I know there are differing views about whether it was 1971 or 1972 or close around that time when Mara, along with Cecchin, Boscolo, and Prata, developed the Milan approach (Barbetta & Telfener, 2021;Campbell et al, 1991). Matteo Selvini: It was a very rapid process, given the model was originally developed in the early 1970s and in 1975 Paradox and counterparadox was published in Italian (Selvini Palazzoli, 1978a).…”

The influence of the Milan approach—Part 2. The legacy of Boscolo and Cecchin and their Paduan connection: A conversation with Andrea Mosconi

“…The Milan approach made a colossal contribution to psychotherapy and has been instrumental in the birth and evolution of family and systemic psychotherapy (Amorin‐Woods & Selvini, 2023; Barbetta & Telfener, 2021). The early concepts and ideas, while having evolved through time, continue to be held in high regard.…”

Evidence and couple and family therapy

“…It is a gift in the couple and family therapy field that part of it has been a thoughtful and deep discourse about epistemology. This journal has been and continues to be one of the most important places where that discourse thrives (Barbetta & Telfener, 2021). But perhaps, we can leave the extremes of this discourse that vitiates empiricism behind.…”