Sue Walrond-Skinner – författare

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a growing interest in family therapy as a potent tool for helping to bring about change and growth in many families whose lives had become stagnant, joyless or self-destructive. As it became more popular as a method of social work intervention, demands for training opportunities for professional workers increased. Despite this, however, there was very little writing on the subject produced in Britain at the time. Originally published in 1976 this practical text was aimed at the growing number of social workers who were anxious to add family therapy to their skills, and would also have been of value to psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychologists, and all those involved in the psychotherapeutic treatment of married couples and families who came to them for help.

Using case illustrations, Sue Walrond-Skinner describes the theory behind family therapy and some of the techniques of treatment which the method uses. By extensive use of verbatim transcripts of interviews, she shows the minute-by-minute flow of a family therapy session and gives a clear idea of what can be and is achieved using this method of therapeutic intervention. A major part of social work today, this book shows where it all began.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a growing interest in family therapy as a potent tool for helping to bring about change and growth in many families whose lives had become stagnant, joyless or self-destructive. As it became more popular as a method of social work intervention, demands for training opportunities for professional workers increased. Despite this, however, there was very little writing on the subject produced in Britain at the time. Originally published in 1976 this practical text was aimed at the growing number of social workers who were anxious to add family therapy to their skills, and would also have been of value to psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychologists, and all those involved in the psychotherapeutic treatment of married couples and families who came to them for help.

Using case illustrations, Sue Walrond-Skinner describes the theory behind family therapy and some of the techniques of treatment which the method uses. By extensive use of verbatim transcripts of interviews, she shows the minute-by-minute flow of a family therapy session and gives a clear idea of what can be and is achieved using this method of therapeutic intervention. A major part of social work today, this book shows where it all began.

The family therapy movement had from its earliest days been marked by a surge of creativity and by the energy of the new ideas it generated. Originally published in 1979, the authors of the original essays collected together in this book felt that the time had come to take stock and to scrutinise more carefully the meaning and effectiveness of this new psychotherapeutic method within the particular conditions prevailing Britain at the time.

The book focuses on issues relating to theory, research and practice and, while concentrating on three sub-specialities of family therapy – family group therapy, marital therapy and network therapy – the papers cover a wide variety of topics. In addition to papers by practitioners and teachers of family therapy, two contributions are included from the field of academic psychology.

Before this, much of the family therapy literature had been presented in the form of an uncritical eulogy of the method. The special interest of this book lies in its attempt to bring a critical perspective to bear upon family therapy and its application. Moreover, in contrast with much that had been previously written, the authors sought to make a distinctive contribution to the development of family therapy through their effort to integrate, rather than to polarise, what is valuable within a variety of different theoretical and empirical approaches.

The family therapy movement had from its earliest days been marked by a surge of creativity and by the energy of the new ideas it generated. Originally published in 1979, the authors of the original essays collected together in this book felt that the time had come to take stock and to scrutinise more carefully the meaning and effectiveness of this new psychotherapeutic method within the particular conditions prevailing Britain at the time.

The book focuses on issues relating to theory, research and practice and, while concentrating on three sub-specialities of family therapy – family group therapy, marital therapy and network therapy – the papers cover a wide variety of topics. In addition to papers by practitioners and teachers of family therapy, two contributions are included from the field of academic psychology.

Before this, much of the family therapy literature had been presented in the form of an uncritical eulogy of the method. The special interest of this book lies in its attempt to bring a critical perspective to bear upon family therapy and its application. Moreover, in contrast with much that had been previously written, the authors sought to make a distinctive contribution to the development of family therapy through their effort to integrate, rather than to polarise, what is valuable within a variety of different theoretical and empirical approaches.

Originally published in 1981, this volume presents papers by the leading British theorists and practitioners in family therapy from its beginnings up to the 1980s. It collected together for the first time a number of important previously published articles which had relevance and interest for family therapists of the day, and includes other chapters specially written for this book which reflected the most recent thinking on the topics covered at the time.

The book is divided into three parts. The first, which includes papers by John Bowlby, R.D. Laing and A.C.R. Skynner, deals with the theory behind family therapy. In the second part we see the application of family therapy to specific clinical situations such as adolescent psychiatry, illness, death and mourning in the family, and marital therapy. The third part of the book covers various differential approaches within family therapy, including psychoanalysis; the experiential approach and family construct psychology.

The papers in all three parts weld together ideas from the behavioural and the psychodynamic spheres of interest. Addressed as they are to theoretical issues and clinical applications, they linked together the past and future of family therapy at that time.