ABSTRACT
Introduction During the past fifteen years most of the pioneer work and writings about family interaction and psychological disturbance have stressed the insights afforded by family therapy into interpersonal dynamics, communication disturbance, and the “here and now" problems of affect expression; and there has been a tendency in many family approaches to minimize the ex ploration of genetic material, intrapsychic life, and the utility of psychoana lytic principles. In our family studies at the Cedars-Sinai Department of Child Psychiatry during the past six years, my colleagues and I have placed emphasis on the need for a continued regard for understanding and dealing with genetic and intrapsychic phenomena and their reciprocal relationship to the dynamic object relationships of interpersonal life. Some family ther apists stress the concept that intrapsychic conflicts do not cause disruptive family relationships, but on the contrary are the result of such disruptive family relationships (Bell, 1961). The emphasis thereby has been to utilize family meetings to work primarily with such disruptive family relationships. W e prefer to study the interaction between intrapsychic and interpersonal
factors-the cycle in which pathogenic family relationships cause intra psychic conflict and maladaptations; once ingrained, these conflicts and maladaptations generate further disruptive familial relationships. Thus we choose not to limit ourselves to the interpersonal portion of the cycle, but rather to explore the interactions between the individual and his family as a unit, and between the individual's psyche and family role assignments, and the adaptations that evolve in that psyche in exchange for love and security.
