Introduction: The Challenge of Family Therapy

Abstract

The introduction of a new way of thinking about and treating psychiatric problems is fraught with difficulties and resistances. A profession becomes wedded to one approach, and the tendency is to stay with that one. For a member of a profession to consider and accept new ideas might undermine long-established and cherished beliefs and practices. These new ideas could represent a threat to what the individual has been doing all along. This is not very attractive to those who have devoted lifetimes to the acquisition of concepts and therapeutic techniques whose prior assumptions are now being questioned. As a psychiatrist colleague said, “Let’s face it, I have too much at stake in this thing to change now. I have helped a lot of people over the years, so I must have been doing something right.”