ABSTRACT
When family therapy ®rst emerged in the 1960s it sought, quite vociferously, to assert its own superiority over other extant forms of therapy. Thus Haley (1981) and others criticised `insight'- based therapies and therapies that expected the therapeutic relationship to achieve results alone (person-centred therapies). During the life cycle of family therapy, this tradition of isolationism has continued with almost an obsession, with the latest philosophical trend and attention given to exotic practices within family therapy rather than to the developing world of other therapeutic modalities.
