ABSTRACT
Mental health clinics have never changed a therapeutic approach or discharged a psychiatrist, psychologist, or social worker on the basis of follow-up results of therapy. The arguments against the introduction of family therapy offered here are based on observations of the consequences in clinics in various parts of the country. A clinic administrator might think the problem is put too strongly here and believe that compromise is possible so that family therapy can be introduced along with individual therapy. Mental health clinics continue to be governed by the medical model. Families become dependent on medications they are told will have to be taken for the rest of the client’s life, creating a never-ending need for treatment. The effect is most apparent in child treatment facilities. The average clinician in a mental health clinic is trained in the sensible belief that therapeutic change occurs when something inside the patient changes.
