Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:51:25.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Family and Individual Therapy: Comparisons and Contrasts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Jeremy Holmes
Jeremy Holmes*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University College Hospital, Gower Street, London WCl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Psychoanalytical and family therapies are contrasted: psychotherapeutic change involves a change of frame. The new frame in family therapy is the system; for analytical therapy it is the unconscious, but there are striking formal similarities between them. To achieve this change, there are two basic modes of therapy, reflective and directive, each containing elements of both. An essential ingredient in therapy is an uncoupling of action from effect, which occurs in play; psychotherapy can be seen as a special type of play. In family therapy, the therapist may useful playful paradox: ‘therapeutic double binds'. Transference, the vehicle of psychoanalytical therapy, is a metaphorical relationship that is also essentially playful—serious but not real. Some guidelines for considering the relative indications and contraindications of family and individual psychotherapy are offered.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 147 , Issue 6 , December 1985 , pp. 668 - 676
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bateson, G. (1973) Steps towards an Ecology of Mind. London: Paladin.Google Scholar
Barker, C. (1983) The psychotherapist. In The Analysis of Real Skills: Social Skills (ed. Singleton, N. T.). London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Byng-Hall, J. (1980) Symptom-bearer as marital distance-regulator. Clinical implications. Family Process, 19, 335–365.Google Scholar
Chase, J. & Holmes, J. (1984) Family therapy in adult psychiatry. Paper presented to Society for Psychotherapy Research, Ravenscar.Google Scholar
Clarkin, J., Frances, A. & Moodie, J. (1979) Selection criteria for family therapy. Family Therapy, 18, 391–403.Google Scholar
Cooklin, A. (1982) In Family Therapy: Complementary Frameworks for Therapy and Practice (eds. Bentovim, A., Gorrell-Barnes, G. and Cooklin, A.). Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Deutsch, F. (1957) A footnote to Freud's ‘Fragment of an analysis of a case hysteria’. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 26, 159–167.Google Scholar
Eliot, G. (1876) Daniel Deronda. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1905) Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria. Standard Edition, 7, 1–22. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Freud (1916–1917) Introductory lectures in psychoanalysis. Standard Edition. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Garland, C. (1982) Taking the non-problem seriously. Group Analysis, 12, 4–14.Google Scholar
Hall, A. D. & Fagan, R. E. (1956) ‘Definition of System’. General Systems Yearbook, 1, 18–28. In Watzlawick op cit .Google Scholar
Holmes, J. (1983) Psychoanalysis and Family Therapy: Freud's Dora Case Reconsidered. Journal of Family Therapy, 5, 235–251.Google Scholar
Holmes (1985) The language of psychotherapy. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1, 240–254.Google Scholar
Humphrey, N. (1983) Consciousness Regained. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, D. & Haley, J. (1963) Transference revisited. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 137, 363–371.Google Scholar
Khan, M. (1983) Hidden Selves: Between Theory and Practice in Psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, G. A. (1955) The Psychology of Personal Constructs. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Lesser, M. & Lesser, B. Z. (1983) Alexithymia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 1305–1308.Google Scholar
Luborsky, L. & Singer, B. (1975) Comparative Studies of Psychotherapies: Is it true that ‘Everyone has won and all must have prizes’? Archives of General Psychiatry, 32, 995–1008.Google Scholar
Malan, D. (1979) Individual Psychotherapy and the Science of Psychodynamics. London: Butterworth.Google Scholar
Madanes, C. & Haley, J. (1977) Dimensions of Family Therapy (1956). Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 165, 88–98.Google Scholar
Martin, F. (1977) Some implications from the theory and practice of family therapy for individual therapy (and vice versa). British Journal of Medical Psychology, 50, 53–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Medawar, P. (1984) Pluto's Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Milner, M. (1971) On Not Being Able to Paint. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Minuchin, S. (1974) Families and Family Therapy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Palazolli, M., Boscolo, L., Ceccin, G. & Prata, G. (1978) Paradox and Counter-paradox. New York: Jason Thomson.Google Scholar
Papp, P. J. (1976) Family Choreography. In Family Therapy (ed. Guerin, P. J.). New York; Gauden Press.Google Scholar
Pedder, J. (1979) Transitional space in psychotherapy and theatre. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 52, 377–384.Google Scholar
Plaget, J. (1954) The Child's Construction of Reality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ryle, A. (1982) Psychotherapy: A Cognitive Integration of Theory and Practice. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rycroft, C. (1968) Imagination and Reality. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Sandler, J., Dare, C. & Holder, A. (1973) The patient and the analyst. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Segraves, R. T. (1982) Marital Therapy. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, D. A. (1981) Comparative credibility of treatment rationales: Three tests of expectancy theory. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21, 111–122.Google Scholar
Sharpe, E. (1937) Dream Analysis. London: Hogarth.Google Scholar
Shepherd, M. (1984) What price psychotherapy? British Medical Journal, 6402, 809–810.Google Scholar
Strachey, J. (1934) The nature of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 15, 127–810.Google Scholar
Skynner, A. C. R. (1976) One Flesh: Separate Persons. London: Constable.Google Scholar
Watts, A. (1961) Psychotherapy East and West. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J. & Jackson, D. (1967) Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Winnicott, D. W. (1972) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Wolff, H. H. (1972) Psychotherapy: Its place in Psychosomatic Management. Psychotherapy Psychosomatics, 22, 223–239.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.