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Power and influence in the environment of family therapy *
Author(s) -
Kingston Philip
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-6427
pISSN - 0163-4445
DOI - 10.1046/j..1982.00588.x
Subject(s) - family therapy , power (physics) , psychology , systemic therapy , social environment , social system , social psychology , psychotherapist , sociology , medicine , social science , physics , quantum mechanics , cancer , breast cancer
This paper explores some of the ways in which family therapy theory and practice limits an appreciation of the contexts of families and family therapists. It focuses particularly upon how the rules which underlie patterns of relationships in social systems are made and maintained more by one part of a system than by another, and considers this (a) within families, (b) within various aspects of the social environment of families, and (c) within the organizational contexts of family therapists. It then proposes that the systemic thinking which family therapists apply to families is potentially applicable to wider contexts including international relationships.