Change: How do we recognize it?

Abstract

The paper seeks to examine the working assumptions that guide us as therapists engaged in the attempt to facilitate change in families. It summarizes a piece of preliminary research based on the responses of a group of therapists working in different agencies. A questionnaire on change was developed and given to the therapists followed by a group discussion.The results suggest that therapy teams, and families, have common sense ideas about: the beginning, and end of a period of change; types of change—those falling into four categories; of behavioural, structural, communication and experiential. Our results suggest that difficulties in therapy may be associated with a failure amongst the therapists in a team to negotiate their mutual assumptions about change. In addition the process of therapeutic change is seen as involving a negotiation between the family and the therapists about what will count as change.The data were gathered from a group of therapists attending a local meeting of the Association for Family Therapy in Plymouth.