ABSTRACT

The therapeutic relation might be described as a dyadic system, to which both participants bring their membership in a family system, in which they play a certain role and the rules of which they obey. The family system is one level higher than the dyadic system. If the individual changes in the therapeutic dyad, the change will also have an impact on the wider family environment, which might move to neutralise the change that has taken place in the immediate therapeutic environment. One is a renewed interest in individual therapy in the light of family research. D. H. Heard makes a systematic attempt to apply John Bowlby’s attachment theory to family therapy. Helm Stierlin attempts a synthesis between interpersonal, or relational, psychoanalysis and family therapy. At Chestnut Lodge, Otto Will told Stierlin that when a schizophrenic shows the signs of progress, the family tries to remove the patient from therapy.