ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the notion that symptoms or problems that people experience are not located within an individual but are maintained based upon established patterns of interaction. Families come to therapy with an identified patient, the person in the family who has become the symptom bearer. The family therapist’s job is to deconstruct the symptom; to move beyond the initial presentation of the problem and explore in a systemic fashion the relational rules that maintain the problem. In this chapter, Dr. Minuchin presents an in-depth transcript of a case with an anorectic family, providing commentary on how he deconstructs the symptom. This chapter presents how a therapist can enter into a family through the symptom and help the family to expand its viewpoint from an individualistic model of problems to a more systemic understanding.
