ABSTRACT
This chapter does not present a “pure” approach and serves instead as an example of a systemic practice influenced by selected psychoanalytic ideas. What do I mean by a systemic practice, and exactly which psychoanalytic ideas do I draw from? The systemic tradition of family therapy has an enduring and central interest in context and relationship, which shapes how the presenting problem is understood and how the therapy itself is undertaken. The orientation to context and relationship marks the continuity from the first generation through to the contemporary approaches. Alongside systemic ideas, which by their very nature all privilege the relational and interpersonal, I draw on some ideas from psychoanalysis that function as a “double description” in my practice. A summary list (Flaskas, 2002) would include the following: the unconscious and unconscious communication; transference, countertransference, projection, and projective identification; containment and the therapeutic “holding frame”; and knowledge about attachment and attachment patterns, allied as much with systemic as psychoanalytic therapy. Psychoanalytic ideas are most regularly in my mind with respect to the therapeutic relationship and my use of self.
