ABSTRACT
A new emphasis was placed on the importance of family life for, although there is no formal 'family policy' in Britain, the majority of our legal, financial and social legislation has been based on the notion of the 'normal' nuclear family. In facing the tasks that arise for themselves, individuals and families use two types of information to set about problem solving. They use the historical information they have about how they, as members of a particular family, set about dealing with life's issues. The counsellor should establish the interactive sequence in which the problem behaviour is embedded. The family was seen as a haven and sexual inequality was perceived as a harmonious complementary arrangement in which men and women presided over separate but equal worlds. Our thinking has for too long been dominated by a view of human distress as being the product of processes internal to the individual.
