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The real as illusion: deconstructing power in family therapy
Author(s) -
Larner Glenn
Publication year - 1995
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 - 10.1111/j.1467-6427.1995.tb00013.x
Subject(s) - illusion , intervention (counseling) , power (physics) , perspective (graphical) , family therapy , context (archaeology) , relation (database) , reading (process) , epistemology , sociology , michel foucault , psychology , psychotherapist , philosophy , computer science , politics , political science , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , law , paleontology , biology , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , database , psychiatry
This paper examines the current issue of power and intervention in family therapy from the perspective of Jacques Derrida's philosophy. In a deconstructive reading which presents power as both real and socially constructed, it negotiates the border between such dualities as knowing/ not‐knowing, intervention/non‐intervention, and power/non‐power. The paper tracks Goolishian and Anderson's approach to therapy as deconstructive in practice, but not in theory, and discusses a double view of power in relation to both Bateson and Foucault. It suggests that power is both endemic to the context of family therapy and an illusion of epistemology. The paper concludes with a discussion of the wider question of ethics in relation to technology.