ABSTRACT
We have already explained that family therapy seeks to widen a family's understanding of any problem they come to therapy with. The ®rst fundamental process that occurs in family therapy is that the therapist explores the problem that is described in order to expand the contexts in which it is understood. A therapist expands the family's understanding of a problem by helping them to contextualise the problem within the different `levels of meaning' (Pearce 1994). This approach allows the therapist to accept that for many families they are `stuck' in not knowing what to do differently because they cannot think outside of their frame of reference. In our example of the Jones family the therapist accepts their description but begins to explore with them what in¯uences have determined how they have de®ned `everything'. She will help the parents appreciate how their response is embedded in how they relate to one another. She will then move the frame of reference to ®nd out how this response has been affected by their own family histories and how it will be affected by their ideas about gender roles in the family.
