2. How effective is family and couples therapy? On what principles and techniques is this form of therapy based?

Key Points:

• Individual psychological disorders often reflect disturbance in family relationships.
• We can trace family therapy back to the family theories of schizophrenia in the 1950s.
• The goal of family therapy is to change dysfunctional patterns of interaction.
• Like family therapy, various types of couple therapy are practised in an attempt to change interactional patterns.
• The most thoroughly evaluated couple therapy is based on the premise that ‘distress results from couples’ aversive and ineffectual response to conflict’.
• Because many family therapies have been developed by highly skilled, charismatic therapists, some critics argue that the attraction of these therapies may reflect little more than this charisma.