ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on three years' work of a research team whose broad aim has been to understand the experience which families have when they take part in family therapy. It attempts to think less about own ideas and more about the client's. The chapter finds when therapists can do this the therapeutic context is established more quickly and it is maintained more assiduously throughout therapy. The chapter discusses way therapists and clients create a narrative about their therapy together and how both clients and therapists can become more aware of this process. The traditional position of the researcher is to observe families and then categorise these observations. However, in era of social construction we are challenged to take greater responsibility for what we observe; for the social discourses which influence how we observe; and for the process of consensual agreement which verifies our observations. But literature is replete with negative reactions to therapy which therapists must take seriously.
