ABSTRACT
Termination in family therapy has been the least examined treatment phase. If anthropologist van Gennep's (1960) three stages of ritual process (separation, transition, and reintegration) are applied to families in therapy, it is evident that significant work has been done in looking at how families separate from their old organization and join with the therapist(s) to create a new system. Meeting in a special place (therapist's office) with particular paraphernalia (e.g., phone, one-way mirror, video), and at a fixed time all help to mark that the family is outside of their day-to-day context (Kobak & Waters, 1984). Similarly, the mid-phase of treatment (which van Gennep calls the transitional stage) has been well-explained. Through various questioning techniques, homework interventions, and in-session tasks, the family experiments with new roles and rules and tries different interactional patterns. They are "betwixt and between" their old and new identities.
