ABSTRACT
At times the therapist will need to gain access to the usual interactive pattern in the family rather than learning about it only from their descriptions. Although a questioning stance does provide a considerable amount of information it often does not allow for that information to be emotionally condensed in a way that has meaning within `real' time. A therapeutically helpful way of actually watching family interaction is to request members of the family to enact a particular interactional event within the session (Minuchin and Fishman 1981). This usually takes the form of a discussion between two people on a theme that is relevant to the issues being discussed in therapy or on a constructed task provided by the therapist. This is called enactment. The purposes of the enactment are:
· To enable the therapist to see how the members interact rather than hear them describe how they believe they interact.
