The reach of systems theory: A clinician's retrospective, 1984?1993

Abstract

One of the early family therapists provides a review and analysis of his work in the recent decade (1984–1993), providing also a structure and perspective that connects it with his earliest work in the early 1960s. His work describing the blaming process as a common source of pathogenic relating resulted in a key article in 1984, from which two streams of work and one tributary emerged. A 1984–1989 stream defined a conflict cycle by which therapists might sort out the countless conflicts heard in family interviews, thus aiding diagnosis and treatment. A 1989–1992 stream defined another form of pathogenic relating, “learning to be possessed,” a learned means of skillfully avoiding blame for wrongdoing which is roughly but usefully defined as “The Devil made me do it.” The writer concluded that if one became very good at it, “learning to be possessed” was excellent training for the development of delusional thinking in adolescence and afterwards. Piaget's work suggested that a case could be made for a good match between adult delusional and the problem-solving difficulties of six-to-eight year-old children. During 1992–1993, the author returned to a topic he believes he was the first to introduce and seriously address in family therapy: The problem of defining phases of family therapy (which he wrote about in the early 1970s). Rejecting the traditional beginning-middle-ending model in psychotherapy, he substituted a series of four-interview units, beginning with the engagement series and ending with termination. The early work concentrated on engagement, the recent on termination. Three decades ago family therapy hardly existed, but today it is firmly established among the major psychotherapies. There are tens of thousands of mental health workers familiar with the basic concepts and techniques of the field; and of these, there are several thousand highly skilled practitioners. The field has been both blessed and cursed by the absence of a single father. The blessing has been a rich diversity of viewpoints powerfully enunciated by quite gifted individuals and their disciples. The curse has been factionalism that at times has reached an unusual level of personal vindictiveness, and has encouraged ideologues intent on subordinating the originality and creativeness of the field. Exponents of major viewpoints in the field have, it seems to me, an obligation to continue to enunciate them clearly, to add depth and breadth to those viewpoints whenever possible. As one of the early family therapists, I believe I have such an obligation. In this article I propose to summarize, review, and analyze my work of the past decade, 1984–1993; to add a perspective whenever that may be possible; to relate the work of the recent decade to the work of past decades, whenever possible; to propose a “structure” for the work of the past decade, and whenever possible to relate that “structure” to those of previous decades. I am not a writer of books in the ordinary sense, but a writer of articles enunciating particular ideas; and often it has taken several articles to enunciate an idea to my satisfaction. In this article I will attempt to enunciate two “streams” which flowed from a common source, and also a tributary. It incorporates seven previously published articles.