ABSTRACT
The idea of treating a number of families together was first pioneered in the early 1960s by Laqueur and his co-workers. The early multi-family groups were appropriately described as a “sheltered workshop in family communication”. If therapists encourage feedback between families, then this can lead to mutual learning. Interactions are necessarily more intense in a group setting where children and parents are participating in different tasks and where they are required to examine not only their own but also other families’ communications and behaviours. In a multi-family setting, with very few staff present, families get the constant message that it is their job to deal with the problems and related issues. Such parental involvement can also be helpful to staff in that it can defuse or neutralize chronic staff-patient relationships. Staff is no longer the primary reference-point for patients, as they so often seem to be in institutions, with an underlying assumption that they have total knowledge.
