The Misuse and Use of Science in Family Therapy

Abstract

The wish to adopt ideas and metaphors from science can have a constricting effect on thinking about family therapy theory and practice. We describe three examples from the recent literature. The two problems describe: (a) borrowing the prestige and certainty of scientific ideas and metaphors and using them as cultural representations of reality, and (b) embracing certain philosophically comprehensive systems of thought. We then recommend some appropriate borrowing from the natural history tradition of science, and give some examples of ways in which that tradition has widened rather than narrowed the range of ideas that are used in family therapy.

The Value of Curiosity and Naiveté for the Cross‐Cultural Psychotherapist

“…The work of therapy can thrive in a dialogic process if both client and therapist are accorded their own spheres of competence. Newmark and Beels (1994), using the analogy of how roles in a research team are similar to role complementarity in therapy, compare the client to the primary investigator, and the therapist to the expert consultant. A number of family practitioners have taken bold steps in altering treatment hierarchies.…”

Hearing Metaphor: An Approach to Working with Family‐Generated Metaphor

“…The literature of family therapy has in recent years paid increasing attention to the use of the narrative or metaphorical mode of thought in clinical work. The critique of paradigmatic language, and its attendant assumptions about family units, launched by feminist family therapists in the 1980s (Goldner, 1985; Hare‐Mustin, 1987; Luepnitz, 1988), has been followed by explorations of the constricting effects of family therapists' scientific metaphors on their thinking and practice (Newmark & Beels, 1994; Rosenblatt, 1994; Waters, 1994) and the potential advantages of shifting to a narrative metaphor (Paré, 1996; Zimmerman & Dickerson, 1994). Meanwhile, there has been an explosion of interest in the role of story and narrative in helping families change (Anderson & Goolishian, 1988; Anderson, Goolishian, & Winderman, 1986; Parry, 1991; Penn & Frankfurt, 1994; Sluzki, 1992; White & Epston, 1990).…”

More Than Just One Way

“…We need to help them appreciate that much of the "common knowledge" used in the addiction treatment field is no more than stereotypes-our own versions of pictures of the addict, of family members, of circumstances in their lives. Newmark and Beels (1994), citing the therapist Margot Weinshel, take an optimistic stance on this: "The youthful fascination with tidy explanatory systems that in early years eased the way through a new field of mental health may no longer be necessary" (p. 15). Paul, in his book Critical Thinking (1993), writes that "as long as we continue to feel threatened by those who think differently from us, we will listen seriously only to those who start from our premises, validate our prejudices, and end up with our conclusions" (p. xii).…”