ABSTRACT
Individuals and families do not come to therapy with a clear worked-out view of what will happen. Few people have the expectation: `I thought that we would talk about things and slowly I would have a different feeling about the problem and then constructively build some alternative strategies for dealing with it.' Few of us when we have troubles, worries and distress think that clearly. However, family members will have thought about what will happen during therapy ever since the appointment was made. There may be several elements to these thoughts. First, there may be `magical thinking' that somehow the therapist will raise a magic wand and everything will suddenly become different. Though most people are able to realise that thoughts of this nature are unrealistic, it is important, early on in therapy, to acknowledge that this may be what family members hope for. We can see that such a magical wish may be connected to family members feeling defeated by their problems and wanting someone else to solve them for them. Secondly, many children will come to therapy expecting a `telling off' and more worryingly may fear being `taken from their family' or medically examined in some way. One of the authors once met a family where the child had been told he was coming to the dentist! In his case he was expecting something very different from what he got. Other expectations might be related to those emotions underlying the problem, that is, that `blame' and `responsibility' will be portioned out by the therapist.
