1st Edition
Rewriting Family Scripts Improvisation and Systems Change
By John Byng-Hall
Copyright 1996
288 Pages
by
Guilford Press
Families can develop self-destructive routines so predictable that members seem to be following a script each coming in on cue as the plot unfolds. Such scripts can be altered, however, when therapists help clients learn to improvise new patterns of relating. This book presents an innovative approach to doing just that--incorporating into therapy elements of script theory and recent findings in attachment research, including those related to narrative. Developing a new attachment concept, the secure family base, from which individuals can feel safe enough to explore and improvise new scripts, Byng-Hall shows how insecure relationship patterns can be changed both during and after therapy. Jargon-free and illustrated with detailed clinical case material, this book presents a comprehensive conceptual framework that illuminates the central issues of therapy practice with families, couples, children, and adults.
I. From Scripts to Improvisations
1. Secure Enough to Improvise
2. The Nature of Scripts
3. Identification across the Generations
4. Rewriting Family Scripts
5. A Case Example
II. Creating a Secure Family Base
6. Security in the Family
7. Therapy and Supervision as Secure Bases
8. Myths and Legends about Security
9. Resolving Care-Control Conflicts
10. Resolving Distance Conflicts
11. Positive Framing of Parenting Scripts
III. Reediting Scripts in Changing Circumstances
12. Scripts in Formation of a New Family
13. Grieving Scripts
14. Disrupted Scripts: Family Breakup and Disability
1. Secure Enough to Improvise
2. The Nature of Scripts
3. Identification across the Generations
4. Rewriting Family Scripts
5. A Case Example
II. Creating a Secure Family Base
6. Security in the Family
7. Therapy and Supervision as Secure Bases
8. Myths and Legends about Security
9. Resolving Care-Control Conflicts
10. Resolving Distance Conflicts
11. Positive Framing of Parenting Scripts
III. Reediting Scripts in Changing Circumstances
12. Scripts in Formation of a New Family
13. Grieving Scripts
14. Disrupted Scripts: Family Breakup and Disability
Biography
John Byng-Hall is a Consultant Child and Family Psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic. He has published widely on topics such as family myths, legends, and scripts; attachments within the family; adolescence; and the impact of chronic illness within the family. He has also presented his ideas at international conferences. He was trained at Cambridge University, University College Hospital London, the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospitals, and at the Tavistock Clinic. He is a past Chair of the Institute of Family Therapy, London.
"I found Rewriting Family Scripts to be a very human book, absorbing, delightful and clear. It should engender a new era in the study of attachment in the family and should serve as recommended reading for all workers in the field. "Mary Main, Ph.D., Leiden, The Netherlands
"This long?awaited book is the culmination of 25 years of practice by one of Great Britain's foremost family therapy practitioners and trainers ... It is an eminently practical and accessible book and provides us with a powerful tool with which to explore the complex links among individual, interaction, and system." Bebe Speed, Editor, Journal of Family Therapy
"Rewriting Family Scripts has been long awaited, but like the very best wines, the maturity and richness that John Byng?Hall's ideas and practice have provided has made the wait worth?while." Arnon Bentovim
