Assessment in family therapy

Traditionally family therapists have not given the concept of assessment as much attention as other types of therapy (Mace 1995). There are a number of reasons for this. Partly, it was argued that therapy should be brief and focused so there was little time to have a set number of assessment sessions prior to engaging in therapy. There was a further argument that if the therapist saw an issue in the ®rst session of therapy she ought to seek to help change/deal with it there and then. In other words for family therapists assessment and treatment were blurred categories.