ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following: cultural competence imperative, efficacy imperative, professional nomenclature about couple and family counseling, and professional practice patterns of couple and family counselors. It examines the wide array of assessments that occur in couple and family counseling. These include assessments of the following: family dysfunction, family developmental tasks, family fusion, dysfunctional behavioral sequences, hierarchy problems, and communication problems. The chapter attempts to introduce the reader to the systems thinking that is the essence of couple and family counseling. From the rich mixture emerged the beginnings of strategic couple and family counseling. In 1959, Jackson founded the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto and invited Virginia Satir to join him. When the Bateson project ended in 1961, Haley and Weakland also joined the staff at MRI. This approach focuses on eliminating problems and changing dysfunctional patterns.
