Systems Consultation: A New Perspective for Family Therapy

Systems Consultation challenges two basic assumptions of family therapy: first, that what family therapists should be doing is curing pathology; second, that family interactions can be understood by focusing on families to the exclusion of larger systems. In asking whether therapy is the best and only model for what family therapists do, this book registers a definitive no. In its place it offers a systems consultation role that more accurately captures the range of activities therapists can and currently do engage in.

FOREWORD (Salvador Minuchin).
PREFACE (The Editors).
PRINCIPLES (The Editors): The Road from Family Therapy to Systems Consultation; The Territory; Signposts; Losing Your Way as a Consultant. MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEMS: Introduction (The Editors); Consultation with Mental Health Professionals (Todd); Family Therapy as Invasion (Whitaker); Is There Therapy after Consultation? (Penn and Scheinberg); The Italian Mental Health System (Cecchin and Fruggeri); Psychiatric Emergency Programs (Perlmutter and Jones); Editors' Commentary.
MEDICAL CONTEXTS: Introduction (The Editors); Health Care Organizations (Bloch); Family Medicine Training Program (McDaniel and Weber); Family Medicine (Sluzki); Using a Group as a Consultant (McDaniel et al); Medical Oncology (Wellisch and Cohen); Pediatrics (Munson); Editors' Commentary.
COMMUNITY GROUPS AMD SERVICE SYSTEMS: Introduction (The Editors); Competence, Impermanence, and Transitional Mapping (Landau-Stanton); Families of Cultists (Singer); Agencies Dealing with Domestic Violence (Goolishian); Divorce Courts (Wynne and Wynne); The Clergy: A Systems Approach (Weber and Wynne); Schools (Fisher); Human Service Provider Systems (Coppersmith); Editors' Commentary.
MILITARY AND BUSINESS SYSTEMS: Introduction (the Editors); The Military (Kaslow); Work Systems (Friedman); Business (Borwick); Editors' Commentary.
CURRENT PROBLEMS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS (The Editors): Problems and Controversies.