ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews two major attempts to apply ecological concepts to human behavior. One is by Urie Bronfenbrenner, who, in his book The Ecology of Human Development, organizes research findings and proposes a general theory without offering explicit guidelines for clinical application. The other is Salvador Minuchin's structural family therapy, which emphasizes clinical application. The chapter discusses ways in which Bronfenbrenner's and Minuchin's ideas might be carried further toward a more thorough-going ecological view of change and intervention. The chapter offers that some programmatic suggestions consistent with an ecological perspective. According to Bronfenbrenner, development is a "lasting change in the way a person perceives and deals with his environment." Salvador Minuchin has been a pioneer in the developing field of family systems theory and is perhaps its most influential theoretician. While complexity is the norm, the problem is that most clinicians treat complexity as deviant. The idea of recursive cycles combines notions of stability and change.
