Teaching Family Therapy

The teaching of family therapy has been the subject of serious scrutiny since the onset of training and accreditation many years ago, yet there are relatively few attempts to apply what we know about systems and the ways they change family therapy teaching as a two-way process. It is as though family therapy teachers were preoccupied with the content of what should be taught, and were not able to direct their attention to the process by which people learned. The authors began by describing the way they conceptualize the 'learning context' which sets the frame for all the teaching they do. Then they discuss the process of setting up a family therapy course, e.g. 'What is the best way to negotiate with a training officer to set up a course in a local area?'. The book then moves to creating the course syllabus, and some of the practical problems-from lateness to mechanical failures-of getting the course off the ground.