Family Networks

By Ross V. Speck

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394711319
• ISBN13: 9780394711317
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Length: 163 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The review listed above is for a different Book

The review listed above is for a different Book

The "Hair" of psychotherapy

Results of experiments in network psychotherapeutic intervention: nuclear & extended family + friends work over the incipient mental patient.The "family networks" process was an attempt to extend the family therapy beyond the family. If this sounds like hopelessly outta date 70s hippie commune romanticism, then maybe you've not noticed what's beyond our borders. While the US of A has led the charge toward alienation & disaffection with the "rugged individualism" challenge, more nations than not still rely on the family & the tribe to resolve personal affairs. For example, in Liberia, it's not uncommon for a divorce to be overseen by a family leader, with all family members in attendance, over a period of months & of continuity; not with the disjointedness of fractured court dates in front of strangers."Family Networks" described how interventions were conducted: somebody was in trouble, & it was up to family & friends to help. There were three distinct phases to network intervention: retribalization/polarization, mobilization/depression, & breakthrough/elation. Or maybe not so distinct: each could be repeated during a 6- to 10-session, 1- to 3-hours-per-session intervention. Regression here was devoid of a negative connotation.There was intervention team & a team leader, but there was as little real leadership as possible. During the sessions, conducted over a period of weeks, everybody would be somehow changed or affected. Ideally, relationships among participants would be altered for the better & certainly to the advantage of the selected "patient."Author Speck was a Canadian-born psychiatrist & psychotherapist, well respected by philosophical colleagues like R.D. Laing & Gregory Bateson. Carolyn Attneave was a Delaware Indian & social worker, a young rebel who came back to the tribal traditions of her people & put them to work in her profession.There is nothing like this today. "Family Networks" is the "Hair" of psychotherapy: tribal family sessions with an emphasis on an altered group relation & not on an altered individual. I had become so disgusted with what passed for "counseling" & "therapy" that after reading "Family Networks," I began writing the tale of a troubled young adult in a troubled world, with the family networks phases as a template.