ABSTRACT
From a systems perspective, motivation is not a personality trait or something that is an intrinsic given. The desire for change and the willingness to embark on working with change are produced by the context in which the family operates and particularly by the therapeutic context that the therapist creates. Motivation is therefore contextual (Steinglas 2009). Building motivation is an important and essential task during the early discussions about the problem. As we have mentioned, many families come to therapy to assert that `if only x would change life would be good' or `if only x would stop interfering we would be OK as a family'. In such cases, the family therapist helps the family become aware that these are unlikely to be adequate solutions to the problem in question, therefore interest and involvement are built up by interrogating such beliefs with curiosity.
