| The study focuses on the genesis of the field of family therapy during the years 1945-1960. Its thesis is that larger cultural changes promoted the emergence of the field during this period. Based on interviews with the founders of family therapy, the study explores five questions: (1) To what extent were the concepts of family therapy an outgrowth of sociocultural changes during WWII?; (2) In what ways did trends in the social sciences contribute to the field's early concepts?; (3) To what extent did the concepts and techniques of family therapy emerge out of the face-to-face interpersonal relationships of the founders?; (4) Were the concepts and techniques of family therapy developed by the pioneers separately or through interactions with one another; and (5) Did the advent of family therapy represent a paradigmatic shift in the Kuhnian sense, or did family therapy constitute merely an extension of the predominant psychoanalytic paradigm?;Retrospective interviews were conducted with seven of the founders of the field--John E. Bell, Jay Haley, Theodore Lidz, John Spiegel, John Weakland, Carl Whitaker, and Lyman Wynne. In addition, close colleagues of four other founders were interviewed: Judith Lieb (a colleague of Nathan Ackerman); Robert Dysinger (an early colleague of Murray Bowen); Jules Riskin (a colleague of Don Jackson and Virginia Satir); and Arthur Bodin (a colleague of Virginia Satir).;Results of the interviews indicated that, from the founders' perspectives, WWII and its aftermath significantly contributed to the birth of family therapy. The data also supported the idea that trends in other social sciences (particularly cultural anthropology) strongly influenced the concepts of family therapy.;Overall, the results highlight the importance of particular social contexts of creativity--work settings in which close collegial relationships developed over time, relatively free of administrative control and of external constraints imposed by the funding sources. This study concludes that the genesis of family therapy did not constitute a paradigmatic shift but rather was a significant extension of the existing psychotherapeutic paradigm. Finally, the future of family therapy is considered in light of the study's five central questions, with an emphasis on the field's current organization and its evolving sociocultural context. |
