This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de Sevilla]On: 16 December 2014, At: 02:04Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Counselling PsychologyQuarterlyPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccpq20

Towards a family-centredtherapy. Postmoderndevelopments in family therapyand the person-centredcontributionDavid BottPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: David Bott (2001) Towards a family-centred therapy. Postmoderndevelopments in family therapy and the person-centred contribution, CounsellingPsychology Quarterly, 14:2, 111-118, DOI: 10.1080/09515070110058549

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515070110058549

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is

expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

THEORY AND PRACTICE

Towards a family-centred therapy.Postmodern developments in familytherapy and the person-centredcontribution

DAVID BOTTSchool of Applied Social Sciences, University of Brighton, UK

abstract The project for recent developments in family therapy has been to reject scientismand the potential for oppression within the modernist stance, in favour of more respectfulcollaborative practices. However, scienti� c certainty is being replaced by philosophical obscurityand there is a risk of missing the obvious in the recognition that, since successful family life is afunction of love and respect, these qualities should be modelled in the therapeutic relationship. Thispaper argues that the humanistic tradition has been neglected and that the person-centredapproach has an important contribution to make to the development of a family-centred therapy.

I do not know whether I am a humanistic psychologist; but how can the truthever be antihumanistic?

(Bateson)

A family worth treating is a family worth loving.(Whitaker, 1975)

Introduction

In a dialogue between Bateson and Rogers which took place at Marin College inCalifornia in 1975 (Kirschenbaum and Henderson, 1990) the two exponents of verydifferent philosophical and theoretical positions reached a point of agreement in a sharedcritique of the behavioural approach as it was then practised. Rogers recounted a visit ofobservation he had made to a state hospital:

Counselling Psychology Quarterly ISSN 0951–5070 print/ISSN 1469–3674 online # 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/09515070110058549

Counselling Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2001, pp. 111–118

Correspondence to: David Bott, Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Therapy, University ofBrighton, Preston House, 200 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2NS, UK. UKCP RegisteredSystemic Psychotherapist; e-mail: D.P.Bott@bton.ac.uk

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

I was amazed at what happened when the patient came in ‘Oh John, I haven’tseen you since last week’. There was a most caring, welcoming atmosphere asthey ushered him into his little cubicle, where he did his monkey business withthe machine.

(Kirschenbaum and Henderson, 1990, p. 187)

In a similar vein Bateson, commented on Skinner’s work:

Trouble begins, though, when you � nd, of the pigeons being put into Skinnerboxes, that � rst of all there is a rule in the lab that nobody but a particular lady isallowed to handle the pigeons . . . And then you � nd that the pigeons adore thelady who puts them in the boxes, that they swoon with pleasure in her hands.And this part of the story is not generally recorded in the research results.Because love, you see, is not what it is supposed to be about.

(Kirschenbaum and Henderson, 1990, p. 183, author’s emphasis)

To the above I might add an observation of my own. Over a decade ago, coming fresh to atraining in family therapy as an established practitioner working predominantly from ahumanistic position, I was struck by the apparent disparity, at that time, between the wayin which family therapy was explained and what actually seemed to happen. Much wasmade of ‘epistemology’ and trainees were enjoined to work within a radical ‘paradigm’(Kuhn, 1962) which gave primacy to the system over the thoughts and feelings ofindividual family members. Against this, I was privileged to work with leading exponentsof the � eld and observe the warmth with which they approached families in distress, theirconcern for individual family members and, above all, the optimism they conveyed aboutthe possibility of positive change. None of this seemed to be addressed directly in thefamily therapy literature of the time.

Instead, empathy was accounted for as a strategy for engagement with a view tosubsequently in� uencing the system (Minuchin, 1976). Similarly, taking a close interestin family members’ views and concerns about one another was explained in terms ofintroducing information into the system by asking circular questions (Selvini Palazzoli,1978). An optimistic belief in the good intentions of family members through positiveconnotation was no more than a strategic method to overcome resistance (Haley, 1976).

The disparity between the apparent coldness in much of the literature and theobvious personal warmth of its practitioners did not � t but, perhaps, to echo Bateson, lovewas not what it was supposed to be about.

The critique of scientism

It was at this time that Lask (1987) challenged the family therapy world coining the term‘cybernetico-epistobabble’. He questioned the need to invent a new language and indulgein philosophical nonsenses, noting the changing fashions in, what he described as‘philosophical superheros’, coming to the conclusion that family therapy needed toknow its limitations:

Can we moderate our ambitions? Can we, for example, recognize a family’sneed to be cared for, or its inability to make decisions, without ourselves taking

112 David Bott

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

over? Can we, instead help a family to recognize the dif� culties and start seekingsolutions?

(Lask, 1987, p. 213)

In a similar vein, Speed (1987) accused family therapy of ‘going over the top’. For thepurposes of this discussion, two aspects of her case can be singled out. Firstly, sheexpressed the concern, which has been taken up more recently by Reimers and Treacher(1995), that family drop out from therapy can be linked to therapists imposing their ownmeaning on family patterns. With this, importantly, she pointed to the relegation of theindividual and the failure to recognize the sense of self, personal history and feelings thatmake up human experience.

Also at this time Nichols (1987) was reminding us that families are made up ofpeople, pointing out that to use a metaphor in saying a family is like a system as a way ofconveying the rich connectedness of family members is quite different from the rei� cationand the dehumanizing consequences of treating it as a system. Nichols warned against‘� nding the family and losing the self’ and compartmentalizing our understanding. Henoted that when therapists talked with individual clients they listened with empathy andinterest, yet when working with families, they tended to focus only on interactionalpatterns. While recognizing the utility of systemic concepts, Nichols expressed concernabout scientism and the tendency of family therapy to bolster its position with highsounding theory while covering up the confusion of complicated human interactions byrecourse to a technical approach. Later, Goldberg and David (1991) were to describe thistendency within family therapy as a bid for the ‘glamour of science’.

For Nichols, it is essential for practitioners to engage with individuals in honest andfull participation instead of remaining once removed and contriving clever interventions.Writing more recently (1993), he asserts:

One of the great dangers in therapy is that the therapist will be transformed intoyet another negative object in the client’s world — another one of those peoplewho don’t empathize and offer nothing but criticism and false reassurance. . .

but the therapist does add something, empathy con� rmation, understanding.(Nichols, 1993, p. 164)

He adds:

Incidentally, the therapist doesn’t join families. Get to know, talk with andempathize with, yes. Join, no.

(Nichols, 1993, p. 164)

Postmodern in� uences within contemporary family therapy

The challenge to family therapy thinking and practice was clear. Family systems theory, asit was articulated at the time, was not only philosophically cold and obscure but also hadthe potential to dehumanize those it set out to help. The response to these concerns hasbeen to establish a new position on the basis of a con� ation of ideas arising from socialconstructionism, constructivism and poststructuralism, put loosely under the heading of

Towards a family-centred therapy 113

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

‘postmodernism’. The earlier paradigm shift from psyche to system that distinguishedfamily therapy from other modes of intervention is now being superseded by anotherwhich privileges conversation or discourse. Modernist certainty would have it that: thereare underlying causes to pathology, these can be located within clients and families; andthere is a means by which they can be diagnosed and eliminated (Gergen and Kaye,1992). By contrast, ‘postmodern’ practionners take the position that each of us constructsour own reality through shared conventions of discourse or conversation. A sociallyconstructed world is one in which there can no longer be therapeutic experts in thetraditional sense of holding a privileged story. If there is expertise then it is to be found inthe ability to ‘co-construct’ reality with clients. Thus, the science of intervention isreplaced by the art of conversation. In essence family therapy has set out to become more‘user-friendly’ (Reimers and Treacher, 1995) and this is to be informed primarily by therediscovery of social constructionism (Berger and Luckman, 1996, Gergen andMcNamee, 1992).

Alongside this, there is a parallel and related interest in the work of Maturana (1980).Maturana’s constructivist approach views the nervous system as a closed machinethrough which each of us constructs our own unique reality. The knowable universe isreplaced by a ‘multiverse’ where client and therapist versions of reality are equally validand where there can be no predictable in� uence of one upon the other, since instructiveinteraction is an impossibility. The con� ation of constructivism, social constructionismand poststructuralism is made possible because each shares common assumptionsconcerning the extent to which the world is knowable as an external reality. ForMaturana, within the domain of biology, this is a function of the structure of the nervoussystem. For social constructionism and post structuralism this position derives from thecombined in� uences of: the impact of phenomenology upon American social theory inthe 1960s and 1970s; Wittgenstein’s work on language; and, in the case of poststructuralism, a contemporary re-working of Nietzsche’s perspectivism.

Given the concerns arising from ‘unfriendly’ modernism, these ideas have provedbene� cial in application in that they have encouraged therapists to be more modest abouttheir abilities and more respectful of their clients’ integrity. A number of viable modelshave been developed which set out to replace the cybernetic metaphor of the modernistposition with a linguistic one (Andersen, 1987; Anderson and Golooshian, 1988;Hoffman 1990; White and Epston, 1990, 1992). Here, problems are understood withinthe context of meanings generated through language and therapeutic activity is directedtowards ‘deconstructing’ and ‘restorying’. The experience of family members is validatedthrough the recognition that all views are valid and therapist power is challenged asrepresentative of a dominant discourse (Foucalt, 1980).

Without doubt, these developments have had a profound and largely positive effectupon the practice of family therapy. Where the problem is externalized (White andEpston, 1990), the family will not feel blamed. If the therapist takes a ‘not knowing’position (Anderson and Golooshian, 1988) in a world where all versions of reality havevalidity and family teams re� ect with family members (Andersen, 1987), the family willfeel both involved and empowered.

Pocock (1995a) has commented lucidly upon the postmodern position in terms of itspossibilities, its limitations and some of its absurdities. With this (1995b) he notes a

114 David Bott

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

tendency within the family therapy movement to make radical antithetical shifts from oneposition to another at the expense of synthesis. He reminds us that this was the case in theenthusiasm for communication theories and the early hegemony of structural, strategicand Milan models at the expense of psychodynamic and transgenerational approaches.History is being repeated as the concerns about modernism are met, not by an attempt ata synthesis which gives attention to both the self and the system, but by another radicalleap into ‘postmodern uncertainty’. A persuasive case is made for middle-groundintegrative position where truth is given up but knowledge is valued.

This opens up the possibility for a position where:

All serious theories of individual, family and societal processes may have a placesince none is true. We can rediscover that which we have thrown away.

(Pocock, 1995b, p. 48)

It can be added here that, together with a tendency to favour dramatic change overconsidered synthesis, family therapy would appear to have lost none of the its fascinationwith the arcane and the obscure or its attempts to transfer principles from the naturalsciences to the social realm.

Efran and Clarfeld (1992) have severe reservations about the way in which con-structionist ideas have been applied to family therapy. They are scathing about thetendency to:

weave a virtually impenetrable fog of abstraction

and are concerned that:

The approach encourages clinicians to side-step crucial issues of experience andrelationship.

(Efran and Clarfeld, 1992, p. 203)

Most signi� cantly, they point to a confusion of logical types between descriptive andprescriptive modes. Thus, the description of therapy as conversation becomes a set ofprocedures which:

Are little more than recombinations of familiar ‘reframings’ and team observa-tion techniques already in use.

(Efran and Clarfeld, 1992, p. 206)

Further, as Jones (1993) points out:

Constructivist positions can lead to amoral and non-responsible positions [and]the respectful ‘being-with’ stance of some therapists can be exaggerated byothers into an assumption that it is simply enough to be there.

(Jones, 1993, p. 215–216)

It would appear that, while constructivism, social constructionism and post structuralismhave provided alternatives for those uncomfortable with the adversarial and manipulativestance of modernist approaches, family therapy has lost none of its philosophical andtheoretical pretensions. Lask’s plea for that family therapy ‘moderate its ambitions’has fallen upon deaf ears and Speed (1991), while acknowledging the contribution of

Towards a family-centred therapy 115

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

social constructionism to family therapy, nonetheless concludes that it has ‘gone too far’(Speed, 1991, p. 395).

Towards family-centred therapy

As we have seen, the project for recent developments within family therapy has been toreject scientism and to replace therapeutic certainty and the potential for oppressionwithin the modernist stance with a more respectful collaborative approach. It is puzzlingthat, in its attempt to ‘humanize’ itself, family therapy has continued to neglect thehumanistic contribution and has, instead, looked for answers in the disparate � elds oflinguistics and biology. If, as Nichols (1987) has suggested, Bateson provided theintellectual under-pinning of family therapy and Erickson its manipulative techniques,it might have been anticipated that it would be Rogers who would give it a heart.

One suspects that the deceptive simplicity of Rogers’ approach has proved insuf� -ciently glamorous to compete with the attractions of ‘postmodern chic’ which carries withit the bonus of dropping the names of French philosophical superstars. Equally andunsurprisingly, comparatively little has been written about person-centred family therapyper se, given the holistic priorities of the systemic paradigm and Rogers primary concernwith individual subjective experience. However, references to humanistic principlesappear in the literature. Minuchin (1974) emphasizes the importance of empathy whenhe asserts that the therapist:

Should feel a family member’s pain at being excluded or scapegoated, and hispleasure at being loved.

(Minuchin, 1974, p. 123)

Jones (1993) in outlining the narrative approach describes the therapist role as ‘non-directive’, going on to suggest that:

. . . It is not necessary for therapists to engage in active, interventive strategies.Psychotherapists familiar with the work of Carl Rogers may see some similarityin the clinical application, if not all of the theoretical formulation of these waysof working.

(Jones, 1993, p. 26)

Again, Treacher (Reimers and Treacher, 1995) in suggesting guidelines for ‘user-friendly’ practice, alludes to humanistic principles:

. . . A family therapist who actively works at believing in the potential of herclients from a basically humanistic point of view, can go a long way toovercoming the inevitable dislikes that she may have for certain users.

(Reimers and Treacher, 1995, p. 200)

Rogers did not work with couples or families, limiting himself to writing about the impactof families on the individual (1961) and couple problems (1972). However, it can beargued that the core conditions: unconditional positive regard, empathy and congruence(Rogers, 1961), provide us not only with an antidote to modernist arrogance but also withthe means to model the manner in which family members might more constructively

116 David Bott

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

respond to one another. Perry (1993, p. 63), gives particular attention to the place ofempathy in family intervention, arguing that it is ‘the great ‘‘taken-for-granted’’ oftherapy’. He takes the view that it is time to return to the close attention to joining thefamily before attempting clever interventions which, even if appropriate, may be out oftune with the family members’ views of the situation. It should be emphasized here thatempathy as understood by Rogers is not reducible to the ‘skill’ of re� ecting back to theclient but, along with the other core conditions, it refers to a set of attitudes which extendto confrontation. It follows that empathic understanding is not just a prelude to intervention butconstitutes intervention in itself. Thus, the relationship becomes the vehicle for change inthat the core conditions provide a challenge to restricting aspects of the client’s self-concept.

What Rogers describes as the necessary and suf� cient conditions for change inwork with individuals, while necessary with a family group, are far from suf� cient.Empathizing with one family member may be at the expense of alienating another.Equally, the therapist needs to guard against the naive tendency to ‘rescue the victimfrom the family’ in identifying with a particular family member. Systemically,therapeutic application of the core conditions operates on two levels. Firstly, theyare the means by which individual family members may be engaged, inviting a non-defensive response to the therapeutic process. At the same time, the experience of thisprovides a model for the way in which family members might deal with each other (Bott1992, 1994).

Person-centred therapy becomes family-centred therapy at the point where the coreconditions are put where they belong — in the family. Put in ‘non-glamorous’ everydaylanguage: empathy becomes understanding and the basis for forgiveness; congruencetranslates as respect and honesty; and what is unconditional positive regard other thanlove? Thus, family-centred therapy describes a process where the therapist approaches thefamily with respect, understanding and affection and encourages family members torespond to one another in a similar manner. This is not for one moment to suggest thatthis is not characteristic of much of family therapy practice but rather that therapeuticactivity is seldom described in these terms.

Conclusion

Recent developments in family therapy theory have opened the way for a more � exibleand creative approach to understanding and practising therapy. Release from theneed to de� ne a presiding theory allows us to draw upon a wide range of explana-tions and to explore possibilities for combining these (Bott, 1998). At the same timethere are indications that, paradoxically, there is a danger of replacing one restrictiveorthodoxy with another. The purpose of this paper has been to offer a reminder of a setof ideas and practices that have been relatively neglected within the family therapyliterature but which have direct relevance to the current pre-occupation with humanisingour work.

The point is that when it comes to families, alongside understanding and respect forindividual difference, love is exactly what it is all about.

Towards a family-centred therapy 117

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14

References

Anderson, H. & Goolishian, H. (1988) Human systems as linguistic systems: preliminary and evolvingideas about the implications for clinical theory. Family Process, 27(4), 361–393.

Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Bott, D. (1992) ‘Can I help you help me change?’ systemic intervention in an integrated model of

counselling. Journal of the British Association for Counselling, 3(1), 31–33.Bott, D. (1994) A family systems framework for intervention with individuals. Counselling Psychology

Quarterly, 7(2), 105–115.Bott, D. (1998) Integrating systemic thinking in counselling and psychotherapy. In R. Woolfe and

S. Palmer (eds) Integrative and Eclectic Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage (in press).Brockman, J. (ed.) (1978) About Bateson. London: Wildwood House.Efran, J. & Clar®eld, L. (1992) Constructionist therapy: sense and nonsence. In S. McNamee & K.

Gergen (eds) Therapy as Social Construction. London: Sage.Foucalt, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon Books.Gergen, K. & Kaye, J. (1992) Beyond narrative in the negotiation of therapeutic meaning. In

S. McNamee & K. Gergen (eds) Op Cit. Therapy as Social Construction. London: Sage.Goldberg, D. & David, A. (1991) Family therapy and the glamour of science. Journal of Family Therapy,

13, 17–30.Haley, J. (1976) Problem-Solving Therapy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Hoffman, L. (1990) Constructing realities: an art of lenses. Family Process, 29, 1–12.Jones, E. (1993) Family Systems Therapy. New York: Wiley.Kirschenbaum , H. & Henderson, V. (eds) (1990) Carl Rogers Dialogues. London: Constable.Kuhn, T. (1962) The Structure of Scienti� c Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Lask, B. (1987) Cybernetico-epistobabble, the emperor’s new clothes and other sacred cows. Journal of

Family Therapy, 9, 207–215.Maturana, H.R. & Valera, F.J. (1980) Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of Living. Boston, MA:

D. Reidel.Maturana, H.R. (1991) Response to Jim Birch. Journal of Family Therapy, 19, 375–393.McNamee, S. & Gergen, S. (eds) (1992) Therapy as Social Construction. London: Sage.Minuchin, S. (1976) Families and Family Therapy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Nichols, M. (1987) The Self in the System. New York: Brunner/Mazel.Perry, R. (1993) Empathy-still at the heart of therapy. The interplay of context and empathy. Australian

and New Zealand Journal of Familty Therapy, 14, 63–74.Pocock, D. (1995a) Searching for a better story: harnessing modern and postmodern positions in family

therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 17, 49–173.Pocock, D. (1995b) Postmodern chic: postmodern critique. Context, 24, 46–48.Reimers, S. & Treacher, A. (1995) Introducing User-Friendly Family Therapy. London: Routledge.Rogers, C. (1957) The necessary and suf� cient conditions of therapeutic personality change. In

H. Kirschenbaum & V. Henderson (eds) The Carl Rogers Reader (1990). London: Constable.Rogers, C. (1961) On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mif� in.Rogers, C. (1972) Becoming Partners: Marriage and its Alternatives. New York: Delacorte.Selvini Palazzoli, M., Boscolo, L., Cecchin, G. & Prata, G. (1978) Paradox and Counterparadox: A

New Model in the Therapy of the Family in Schizophrenic Transaction. New York: Jason Aronson (Tr.).Speed, B. (1987) Over the top in the theory and practice of family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 9,

231–240.Speed, B. (1991) Reality exists OK? An argument against constructivism and social constructionism.

Journal of Family Therapy, 13, 395–409.Whitaker, C. (1975) In M. Sugar (ed.) The Adolescent in Group and Family Therapy. New York: Brunner/

Mazel.White, M. & Epston, D. (1990) Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York: W.W. Norton.Wilkinson, M. (1992) How do we understand empathy systemically? Journal of Family Therapy, 14, 193–

205.

118 David Bott

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

idad

de

Sevi

lla]

at 0

2:04

16

Dec

embe

r 20

14