Introduction
Jacques Derrida is associated with poststructuralist, postmodern thought. Derrida was a French philosopher whose ideas shook the philosophical world in the 1970s and 1980s. His influence extended much beyond philosophy into the fields of literature, communication, linguistics, and therapy. He himself was influenced by – and critical of – other philosophers including Michel Foucault, who he studied under early in his career. In the field of family therapy, several contemporary, poststructuralist therapists have cited his work, including Harlene Anderson, Steve de Shazer, and Michael White. Specifically, therapists were drawn to his ideas involving deconstruction, which was intriguing to therapists attracted to postmodern thought. The therapists above drew on Derrida’s ideas and applied them in various ways to the field of family therapy.
Career
Jacques Derrida was born in 1930 in French colonial Algeria to a well-to-do Jewish family (Stocker 2006). He attended the highly...
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References
Anderson, A. (1997). Conversation, language, and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy. New York: Basic Books.
de Shazer, S. (1994). Words were originally magic. New York: Norton.
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Stocker, B. (2006). Derrida on deconstruction. New York: Routledge.
White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. New York: Norton.
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Murphy, M.J., Gyden, K.E. (2019). Derrida, Jacques. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_819
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