ABSTRACT
One of the consequences of attending to interactions and patterns in relationships is that family therapists may be seen as ignoring individual experiences and even regarding the family as more important than the individual family member. This has been another common criticism of systems theory (Rivett and Street 2003). Some authors have called this the rei®cation (making the family a `solid' `real' entity) of the family. Traditionally, such critiques have come from commentators who have been alive to the domination of individuals by family processes and have wanted family therapists to promote social justice or a more contextual understanding of family life (Poster 1978). The common systems axiom that `the whole is more than the sum of its parts' can be regarded as legitimising this perspective, e.g. the parts are less important than the whole. Some authors have argued that family therapy came into existence at precisely the moment when social conditions required a happy compliant work force in which family life ensured this compliance (Rose 1999). From this view, systems theory legitimated a form of therapy that privileged family functioning against individual (rebellious) development.
