Training in Family Therapy: Dealing with Aspects of the Invariant Method

Abstract

Although the forefathers of family therapy have repeatedly claimed that family therapists must think differently from individual therapists, most training in this field is focused on the transmission of skills. Very little is known about how trainees cognitively structure the process of family therapy, let alone help them change in this area. This paper argues that it is the supervisor's responsibility to organize the training process in such a manner as to facilitate the development of knowledge. Such experiences can also include situations in which the supervisor does not teach, bearing similar effects on the process as when a family, or some of its members, don't show up for a session. A micro-experiment, generated during the course of training family therapists in the Invariant Method of Mara Selvini Palazzoli, illustrates this argument. Prior to the experiment it was hypothesized that systemic understanding is a precondition for practicing this approach. The prescription of disappearances is taken as...