ABSTRACT
In a recent supervision session in our family therapy workshop a family was discussed in which the 10-year-old son, Christopher, was referred to the child psychiatry department as being totally uncontrollable. Cotherapy in conjoint family sessions was undertaken in which mother, father, 14-year-old brother and Christopher participated. Slow but steady progress occurred on a backdrop of increasing awareness by the therapists that father’s sullen depressive stance had much to do with Christopher’s lack of control. Finally, the therapists discovered that the family were living with another member, mother’s mother. She was almost blind and had not spoken to her son-in-law for years. During a home visit by the therapist, grandmother claimed that Christopher was perfectly behaved when she was present. An extended family member living with the referred nuclear family profoundly influenced the quandary which that family faced. But extended family members need not live in intimate contact with a family unit in order to influence them. Indeed, transgenerational influences may continue long after the death of the older generation.
