The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy (Perennial Library)

I first read this gem many years ago, long before I became a therapist myself. What an eye opener! Even reading the first Chapter (it's all of 11 pages) is enough to get you thinking in a fresh way about family problems. It certainly worked that way for me. The book really is about Carl Whitaker, M.D. Augustus Napier was his understudy. Whitaker worked within the idea of family-as-a-system without limiting himself too much with theory. This allowed his methods to evolve as he treated more and more families. And it allowed a book like this to be written: lucid because it makes so much sense, dramatic because so much happens in the family whose treatment it describes, hopeful because it shows how much impact family therapy can have. It wasn't that he didn't know theory. It's that as person he was intuitive, following his gut time and again, and eventually coming out with some guidelines for other family therapists, such as: -The therapist doesn't control the content of a family session, but she or he does control who will be there (this is dramatically dealt with in the first few chapters), -The therapist can cause change by stirring things up and getting family members to look at problems freshly, and -The therapist's job is to re-vision the problem as a communication that is somehow functional. Typical is Whitaker's view that often the "identified patient" in the family is a stand-in for some other problem that the family cannot face without the help of a therapist. Since this great book was written family therapy went through a boom time, was very popular. Then it became integrated into what is often called multi-modal therapy, in which family members sometimes come in individually, sometimes in small groups (ie the parents one time, the children another), sometimes as a whole. Still, it is necessary to understand family systems in order to work this way. People looking into therapy will find this a great explanation of family issues that otherwise may seem baffling. It might also be a motivator to treatment. Therapists trained individually will find this a fine introduction to working with families. They will also benefit from reading other luminaries in this field.

First, let me say that I've never been a proponent of Therapy. This book, however, has made me re-think that stance.I'm recently divorced. I was very surprised how this book explained, in detail, the process I went through. It provided an insight into family and relationship dynamics that I had not considered at all. While obstensively, it documents a therapy process with a single family, the side notes, theory, and author's comments provide a fuller explanation of the dynamice of relationships that makes this book a "must read" if you are interested in why you do things and how you work within your relationships.I find myself wondering if I had read this before my divorce if there would have been a different outcome. I definitely would have looked at the entire process and relationship differently. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to get a better understanding of relationship dynamics, especially in a family setting.

I read this book for a university abnormal psychology class, and it provided a welcome contrast to the way we viewed human behaviour for most of the semester. Typically, psychology classes at my college have focused on individual factors causing psychological distress, but of course, family systems therapy views problems within the family system. Napier describes in depth his therapy with one family from beginning to end, and supplements his explanations of the family systems model and his and Whitaker's therapy techniques with examples from other families they have had in therapy. The book actually reads like a novel, and Napier's explanations make the entire process seem clear and reasonable. Even if you don't agree with the family system model, by the time you finish reading this book, you will at least have a much better understanding of it.

This book literally rocked my world. It was recommded by my psychotherapist and proved to be so incredibly helpful in understanding the multi-generational shaming process passed down through my family. I now have the courage to ask my family to stop spapegoating and judging me! And to simply accept responsibility for their own issues.

The authors have succeeded in writing a serious treatise about marriage and family therapy with the characteristics of an, hard to put down, emotion packed real life drama. I felt as if I were the "fly-on-the-wall" watching as a two caring and skillful therapists worked with a seriously disfunctional familly listening, helping, supporting, cajolling, teasing, pushing. I saw problems of scapegoating the children fall one by one by the wayside until the parents and the parent's parents faced the hard issues they had so skillfully avoided through the dynamics they set up among themselves. This book best illustrates why sometimes familly therapy and not individual therapy can be the right solution. Add to that a "hold-on-to-your-chair" style of writing made this book impossible to put down.