ABSTRACT
It is important when considering termination in family therapy that the view of the ¯owing interactive nature of family life is maintained. Termination implies that something is being ended and hence whatever was happening before will cease to happen after; however, in terms of a systemic notion of change, the difference between before and after therapy sessions does not mean that the interactive change process embarked on will also cease. To put this another way: The endpoint of family work is dif®cult to de®ne because the notion of the family life cycle cuts across the idea that the family is ever in a `correct' state; it is in continual movement and the notion of a set of circumstances that can be identi®ed as `cure' is impossible to sustain. Encouraging families to monitor their own health and their own need for ongoing help allows some to choose an entry-exit-entry-exit sequence of contact with their therapist. If such a pattern appears, provided the family are not just repeating the same process over and over again, we may consider that the idea of a `termination' should be best termed `terminations', with all that this implies. Indeed as the process of monitoring is a core feature of the session to session process, the questions posed from the monitoring position continually present to the family a potential discussion about ceasing the ongoing contact. The family is responsible for terminating therapy, and by accurately listening the therapist will be able to open the discussion into one where ceasing contact becomes the theme. In doing this a particular set of questions follow:
`What happened to the problem?' `How do the family explain this occurrence?' `What was the role of everybody in this change?' `If a similar problem emerged again, what would the family do?'
