ABSTRACT
So far we have introduced the main ideas of systemic work, situated this work in multiple contexts, and interested you (we hope) in several ways of generating new perspectives on the person within their family context. These have included the asking of circular and reflexive questions, genograms and family circles. All this time we have been encouraging you to develop curiosity as to what ‘may be going on’ for an individual within his or her context. It is helpful while you are trying to generate new hypotheses to have frameworks to draw upon. These frameworks are not facts about families, they are constructions which, like all stereotypes, have usefulness and limitations. One such framework is the notion of family phases or life cycle stages.
