Paradox And The Family System

Provides therapists with an understanding of the principles, applications and implications of paradoxical therapy, the rationale for the use of paradox in family therapy and the therapist's role in paradoxical interventions.

Provides therapists with an understanding of the principles, applications and implications of paradoxical therapy, the rationale for the use of paradox in family therapy and the therapist's role in paradoxical interventions.

Although most people physically leave home by their early 20s, emotional separation from one's family is a more difficult process that can continue for a lifetime. Now available in paper for the first time, this acclaimed book addresses the struggle of adults to establish autonomy without sacrificing family connections. Donald S. Williamson presents personal authority therapy, an approach designed to simultaneously foster individual development and family-of-origin intimacy. Therapists are taken step by step through conducting individual, couple, and small group sessions that culminate in several sessions with each client and his or her parents. Writing with sensitivity and humor, the author demonstrates effective ways to help adult children construct new personal and family narratives, resolve intergenerational intimidation, and enjoy healthier, more equal relationships with parents and significant others.

Rather than having to choose between the family and the business, the authors argue that if family-owned businesses can consciously manage and over time, perhaps, synthesize these contradictions, the Family Enterprise will have a long-term strategic and competitive advantage and the family will remain committed to continuity.

Paradox and Counterparadox introduces the English-speaking public to the first results of a research plan drawn up my the Milan Center for Family Studies at the end of 1971 and put into practice at the beginning of 1972. The book reports the therapeutic work carried out by the authors with fifteen families, five with children presenting serious psychotic disturbances, and ten with young adults diagnosed as schizophrenics in acute phase. Though accepting the Bleulerian term schizophrenia, by now in general use, the authors have used it to indicate not the sickness of an individual–as in the traditional medical model–but a peculiar pattern of communication inseparable from the other patterns of communication observable in the natural group (in this case, the family) in which it manifests itself. Starting from the position that modern sciences concerned with communication emphasize the central role of paradox as the source of paralyzing disturbances as well as of creative transformations, the authors demonstrate that it is possible to intervene in a family in schizophrenic transaction by devising original and paradoxical methods in order to release the action-pattern from disturbance to transformation. The counterparadoxes generated in this process, illustrated through a great number of examples, are rigorously analyzed in accordance with the conceptual models provided by general systems theory, by cybernetics, and by the pragmatics of human communication. The reader will recognize, in the cases presented, the stimulating originality and efficacy of this approach, one whose interest exceeds the purely clinical and which offers new points of departure for an ecologic vision of human relationships. A Jason Aronson Book

Learn how to overcome the paradox of family business, and understand that synergy of the two entities will bring greater success than choosing one over the other

Originally published in 1985 and now revised and updated, this work presents the seminal theory that has led to the use of paradoxical techniques in different systems of therapy. Dr. Weeks, a pioneer in the field, has gathered well-known therapists to address key issues such as structure and process of paradoxical therapy; theories of health, dysfunction, and change; ethical implications of working paradoxically; and effectiveness of paradoxical interventions. Selected case studies shed light on basic questions such as whether to work paradoxically and how to establish treatment goals and termination procedures.

Delineates the fundamental therapeutic strategies of family practice, from the definition of problems through enactment and crisis to the final resolution, and demonstrates these techniques in transcripts of actual clinical sessions.