ABSTRACT
Structural family therapy was founded by Salvador Minuchin. Minuchin proposed that families were complex systems with their own unique culture and individual structures. Minuchin recognised boundaries between systems and subsystems as being important in the role of family life. He felt that problems arose if they were too flexible or too rigid. Structural family therapy has been enduringly influential and continues to be practiced, although it has been adapted and indeed integrated within many of the evidence-based approaches. Structural family therapy has been criticised both for being too 'expert-led' and for ignoring issues of power, race, gender and culture. Minuchin influenced by his experiences of working with families from different cultures and continents, recognised families as complex systems with their own structures. Minuchin saw the role of the structural therapist as helping the family to find a more 'functional' way of managing relationships.
