ABSTRACT
Multisystemic interventions have evolved on a more pragmatic and less ideological basis. Other applications of multi-family groups have been to provide education about and to help families cope with chronic medical conditions. Multi-family models have now also been applied to families impacted by a broad array of difficulties: substance or alcohol abuse, bereavement, and children or adolescents with eating, mood, conduct, or anxiety disorders. In addition, multi-family approaches have been used to help to empower families coping with displacement, adversity, or marginalization. Historically, systems-based models have often had "anti-psychiatric" roots, with the mission of de-emphasizing the notion of a "disorder" or "symptoms" residing in an individual designated "patient" and focusing instead on the dysfunctional interactions of the family, community, or care system as a whole. Phillip Rieff suggests that Anna Freud found himself temperamentally lacking in the necessary charisma to be a good hypnotist.
