ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights and examines the skills and techniques that family therapy has brought into the world of psychotherapy. There are a number of internal reasons for a pragmatic approach to teaching and learning family therapy skills. The book gives a thorough description of how assessment works in family therapy. The film that accompanies it provides one example of how the therapist expanded the assessment with the family. The book explores integrative family therapy practice with an emphasis on the therapeutic alliance in family therapy and on how to engage family members in a joint endeavour to improve family life. It concentrates on particular schools of family therapy and their films show one of the techniques that have been bequeathed by that school. The book expands on how a systemic understanding can be used in supervision and reflective clinical practice.
