ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we set out of some of our own personal contexts and issues. In the journey of writing this book we have had time to reflect on how the ideas we have described impact on us in both our professional work and our personal lives. For example, a number of ideas have developed as we have progressed. We had initially not intended to offer a separate chapter on attachments across the individual and family life cycle. However, in the process of writing the book we became struck by how the various demands for change and adaptation on individuals and their families embodies fundamental and powerful demands for emotional adaptation and development. Rather than seeing family life-cycle stages as potential points of transition, coping and crisis, we came to see as we were writing that these offer great and often untapped potential for positive change and reorganisation. It also took us back to the very core of the connections we have been attempting to make between systemic, attachment and narrative approaches. In our work with families, transitions are times of great emotional lability and change. Traditionally, though, the language that has been used to describe these changes has tended to focus more on systemic, relational and organisational features, such as tasks, attempted solutions, reorganisation, clarity of roles and boundaries and so on.
