Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism: Practice Challenges Theory

Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism Postmodernist ideas are widely used in family therapy. However, it is argued that these ideas have their limits in meeting the richness and complexity of human experience and therapy practice. Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism examines postmodernism and its expressions in family therapy, raising questions about • reality and realness • the subjective process of truth • the experience of self. Alongside identifying the difficulties in any sole reliance on narrative and constructionist ideas, this book advocates the value of selected psychoanalytic ideas for family therapy practice, in particular • attachment and the unconscious • transference, projective identification and understandings of time • psychoanalytic ideas about thinking and containment in the therapeutic relationship. Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism offers a sustained critical discussion of the possibilities and limits of contemporary family therapy knowledge, and develops a place for psychoanalytic ideas in systemic thinking and practice. It will be of great interest to family therapists, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals. Carmel Flaskas is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work at the University of New South Wales, where she convenes the masters programs in couple and family therapy. Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism Practice Challenges Theory Carmel Flaskas Brunner-Routledge Taylor & Francis Group HOVE AND NEW YORK First published 2002 by Brunner-Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Taylor & Francis Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2002 Carmel Flaskas Cover design by Sandra Heath All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flaskas, Carmel. Family therapy beyond potsmodernism : practice challenges theory/ Carmel Flaskas. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-18299-9 (Print Edition)—ISBN 0-415-18300-6 (pbk.) 1. Family p