ABSTRACT
The reader who has reached this point may well be feeling overwhelmed at the numerous ways of understanding Jack’s and Janet’s difficulties. There are certainly striking differences between the formulations: some are based on individual work with Jack and Janet, others on seeing the family; the formulation may be built primarily about their thoughts, or their feelings, or their relationships, or their social contexts, or the narratives they have woven about their lives; it may be constructed largely by the therapist, or jointly with the individual or family, or perhaps not exist in a traditional form at all; it may co-exist with a psychiatric diagnosis, or be seen as an alternative to a diagnosis, or else both the concepts of diagnosis and formulation may be regarded with suspicion; it may be an absolutely central or a very peripheral part of the underlying theoretical approach; and it may lead to very different kinds of intervention, or perhaps none at all. The two chapters on integration have, we hope, given the reader some pointers towards putting together the ideas from different models, and have also highlighted the need to work sensitively and reflectively in real-life settings.
