We have used the term “working with” in the title in preference to “therapy,” because the latter implies that the family is the object of treat­ ment and hence in need of it. This view characterised the therapy offered to families of schizophrenic patients in the 1950s and ’60s, but was explic­ itly rejected by the new approaches that developed in the ’70s and ’80s. The earlier therapies were developed on the basis of the premise that the family was responsible for making one of its members schizophrenic. Consequently they were aimed at correcting the presumed distortion in the family, whether this was a problem with the parents’ marriage (Lidz et al., 1957) or with communication between the members (Bateson et al., 1956).