Section One: The space between
1. Invisible webs of connection
2. Systems theory
3. Systems are not static
4. Taking a broader position on systems
5. Towards the ‘systemic mind’
Section Two: Family spaces
6. The multiverse of families
7. The family life cycle
8. Horizontal and vertical stressors
9. The family building
10. The lines of connection
11. Families and meaning
12. Families and emotions
13. Gender and the family
14. Race and the family
15. Culture and the family
16. The social GRRRAAACCEEESSS
17. Symptoms and functions
Section Three: Controversies and debates about systems theory
18. Making people into ‘cogs in the machine’
19. Systems theory as the ‘normality police’
20. Systems theory as a ‘grand narrative’
21. Decolonising systems theory
Section Four: Foundational Principles
22. Collaboration
23. The therapeutic alliance
24. Safety and empowerment
25. Doing what works: evidence- based practice
26. Accountability to employers and clients
27. Reflective practice
28. The self of the therapist
Section Five: Assessing Families
29. Assessment and family therapy
30. Assessment tools
31. Conversational systemic assessment: what do we need to know about the family?
32. How does the problem affect the family?
33. How does the family affect the problem?
34. Broadening the assessment: taking into account multiple levels of context
35. Assessing emotional upsets, pain and trauma
36. Hypothesizing and formulation
37. Assessing for change and building motivation
Section Six: Beginning therapy: interactive interviewing
38. Interactive interviewing
39. Using a family tree (genogram) to stimulate interactive interviewing technique
40. Drawing feedback loops to highlight interactive cycles
41. Bringing interaction into the conversation
42. Evoking interaction curiosity by reflecting on patterns
43. Interactional goal setting
Section Seven: Further into the therapy: interventive interviewing
44. What do we talk about? Bringing formulations and hypotheses to bear in family therapy
45. Intention, intervention and persistence
46. Circular questions
47. Using circular questions to connect family members to the identified problem
48. Using circular questions to interrupt patterns and invite new patterns
49. Using circular questions to deepen understanding
50. Using circular questions to clarify and expand time frames
51. Reframing in family therapy
52. Progressive reframing and Ockham’s razor
53. Externalisation in family therapy
54. Enactment: an action method in family therapy
55. ‘Sculpting’ in family therapy practice
Section Eight: Developing family therapy skills
56: Talking about talking
57: Integrating difference into the therapeutic conversation
58: The dual mind of the therapist
59: Working systemically with emotions
60: Working with blame and negativity
61: Taking the therapist’s voice into everyday life
62: Bringing the therapeutic relationship into the conversation
63: Interrupting and guiding the process
64: More perspective taking techniques
65: Working with family scripts
Section Nine: Common issues in family therapy
66: ‘Resistance’ in family therapy
67: Getting ‘stuck’ in family therapy
68: Distracting and alluring dramas in family therapy
69: Secrets in family therapy
70: Absent family members
71: The mantra of “I don’t know” in family therapy
72: Meeting the needs of diverse family members
73: Endings in family therapy
74: Failure in family therapy
Section Ten: Beyond technique
75: Embodying therapeutic presence
76: Excellence in family therapy
77: Walking into words: using language purposefully
78: When themes get blocked
79: Trusting the process
80: Transformational moments
81: Further journeys into self
82: On knowing not to know: letting go of systems theory
Section Eleven: The schools of family therapy
83: The family therapy generations
84: The first generation: psychodynamic, structural , strategic and Milan
85: The second generation: Social Justice and Post-Milan
86: The third generation: the post-modern revolution in narrative and solution focused approaches
87: The fourth generation: collaborative and evidence-based approaches
88: The contemporary generation
Section Twelve: Evidence based family therapies
89: The evidence-based family therapies
90: Adolescent eating disorders
91: Adolescent depression and suicidality
92: Disruptive adolescent behaviour
93: Family approaches in working with psychosis
94: Evidence-based couple therapy models
95: Multi-family group therapy
Section Thirteen: Contemporary issues in family therapy
96: ‘Family work’ and its relationship to family therapy
97: Digital family therapy
98: Team work in family therapy
99: Becoming a family therapist
100: The family and its therapy
Resources for family therapists
Biography
Mark Rivett, MSc, has practiced family therapy for forty years in a range of mental health settings. He has taught family therapy in three UK Universities and provided plenary speeches internationally. He has published on a range of subjects within family therapy including child mental health, domestic abuse and the use of ‘gaming’ in therapy. He is a previous editor of the Journal of Family Therapy.
Eddy Street, PhD, worked as a clinical and counselling psychologist for over forty years in services focused on child mental health. He has written widely on family therapy and taught both in the UK and internationally. He is a previous editor of the Journal of Family Therapy.
‘Mark Rivett and Eddy Street have provided a coherent and organized way of summarizing all of the key aspects of family therapy in one concise easy to read volume. Not only do they highlight all the key theories, interventions, and skills involved, but they also find ways to engage the reader in major controversies in the field. The book should be part of any core curriculum in family therapy and a part of every family therapist’s library.’
Jay Lebow, Ph.D., Senior Scholar and Clinical Professor, The Family Institute of Northwestern
‘Family Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques is an exceptional, clear and comprehensive contribution to the systemic field. This book is at once engaging, practical, and accessible. Rich with case material, grounded in practice-based evidence, and written with generosity, this text offers both a map and an invitation: a way of seeing, thinking, and practising that supports therapists to work relationally, ethically, and with cultural sensitivity.’
Professor Hannah Sherbersky, Systemic Psychotherapist, CEDAR University of Exeter UK. TV therapist: BBC 3 ‘Anxiety and me’.
