ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates that for family psychotherapists it is imperative to become aware of the multiplicity of contexts which influence the narratives of their own work. Family therapy seems to have limited the application of stories and the narrative almost exclusively to the context of therapy itself; in other words, it has been focusing on how to facilitate families to develop alternatives to the dominant narrative. The book presents an innovation which examines the narrative from a variety of different perspectives including the therapists' own domain; this is possible because of the wide range of diversity within the Systems Group of the Tavistock Clinic. It offers a 'case study' on how different stories from the multiplicity of contexts actually affect the development of narratives used by various therapists within one institution.
