Contextual Family and Marital Therapy

Abstract

“Contextual therapy” is the name chosen by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy for the approach he and his associates have developed. The contextual approach to therapy may provide a model for general health care delivery as well as for family, marital, individual, or otherwise designated therapeutic frames. Such distinctions as marital or family therapy may seem as limited as the term identified patient, when the implications of a comprehensive approach are grasped. Potential for a comprehensive approach is provided by the basic premise of contextual therapy; that is, the extension of equal concern to all those who may be affected by treatment, taking into account their basic welfare interests as perceived by themselves and by others. This premise may be considered “ethical” in the sense of providing a basic commitment for the therapist and a direction for those engaged in therapy. This ethical orientation emerged on a step-by-step basis as parents, and then other family members, were brought into treatment along with hospitalized schizophrenics, and the experience thereby gained was extended to outpatient work.