The Beginning of Us: A Conversation Among Friends About Our MedFT Family

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Focused Issues in Family Therapy book series (FIFT)

Abstract

From the very beginning of our (Tai, Angela, Jennifer) efforts in planning this book, we identified ideas that we wanted to convey through Chapter 1. Sometimes even the best laid plans lead to unanticipated routes, and sometimes those routes bring even better—more purposeful—results. This chapter, while formulated first, was the last to be written. In the name of transparency, we started our contributions to this book by writing our respective—other—chapters. As we were rounding into the halfway mark, and while at the same time experiencing several influential changes in our lives, a clearer vision for this chapter came to us. We recognized that many of you, as our readers, might be new to medical family therapy (MedFT) and would thereby need some perspective about our field’s history. While we wanted you to be informed about this history, we also wanted to offer something beyond just a history lesson—especially since the foundation of MedFT had already been described through other books and manuscripts (e.g., Doherty, McDaniel, & Hepworth, 1994; Hodgson, Lamson, Mendenhall, & Crane, 2014; McDaniel, Doherty, & Hepworth, 2014; McDaniel, Hepworth, & Doherty, 1992; Tyndall, Hodgson, Lamson, White, & Knight, 2012, 2014). In one of our many conference calls, we decied to construct an academic snapshot of MedFT (i.e., a cliff notes version) and then follow that content up with an opportunity for you to learn more about our own personal journeys that lead us to the field. Our hope is that these stories invite you into our love for MedFT and inspire you to build upon this field’s impressive history over the days and years to come.

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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Angela Lamson
    • 1
  • Jennifer Hodgson
    • 1
  • Tai Mendenhall
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Human Development and Family ScienceEast Carolina UniversityGreenvilleUSA
  2. 2.Department of Family Social ScienceUniversity of MinnesotaSaint PaulUSA

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