ABSTRACT
In Tom Andersen’s classic article introducing the field to the idea of “reflecting teams”, he tried to explain his ground-breaking ideas using Gregory Bateson’s theories on epistemology and Humberto Maturana’s structural determinism. By the late 1980s, Tom no longer referred to the language of constructivism and epistemology to explain his work. Instead, he began to use the language of hermeneutic philosophy, narrative theory, and postmodernism, writing: “The reflecting processes can be seen as hermeneutic circles”. Following in Tom’s footsteps, the therapists in the author's clinic stopped wearing the white coats that were then most fashionable among European medical and psychiatric elites. They came together to develop a model for child and adolescent psychiatric services in northern Germany in the early 1990s. In comparison with other crisis services in northern Germany, they have been able to resolve crisis situations with the fewest number of children and adolescents being placed in court-ordered secure hospital units.
