ABSTRACT
One aspect of the self that has always been regarded as important for the family therapist is that she understands her own family scripts (Lieberman 1987; Simon 1989; Lerner 1999; Haber and Hawley 2004). This is important as, without being aware of such scripts, the therapist may ®nd herself `pulled into' unhelpful family scripts in the families she works with. For instance, it is not unusual for therapists who are not parents to ®nd they naturally `side' with the children, especially if the family dynamic is understood as one in which the children are resisting the rules of the parents. Family therapists are therefore taught to analyse their own role in their family of origins and recognise how they have interpreted family life from this stance (for an autobiographical account, see Street 1989). Some theorists have called these kinds of assumptions `prejudices' (Cecchin and Lane 1991) and have encouraged family therapists to remain irreverent or curious about them so that they can control their in¯uence on the therapy. These in¯uences might also come not from past family scripts but from current (family of creation) ones. For instance, when a therapist suffers a bereavement, she may ®nd herself avoiding mentioning loss in family sessions with families at exactly the point at which it would be useful to do so. These dynamics will often surface in supervision when dif®culties working with a family are described. As such dif®culties are deconstructed, it will often turn out to be a situation that echoes the therapist's own family situation.
