Howard Arthur Liddle
Institute /or Juvenile Research
George William Saba
Philadelphia Child G uidance
Clinic
This
paper details the structure and content o/ an introductory /amil y therapy course offered in an academic department. The
para,llel processes between teaching and therapy are used as a metaphor /or the
presentation o/ the course.
Joining, restructuring, and consolidation are defined as the three stages o/
the course, each having distinct goals
and methods. Finally, generic issues
raised by the proposed teaching model are
presented /or trainers to consider.
A recent review of the family therapy training and supervision literature revealed considerable inconsistency and variation on the topic of training program descriptions (Liddle and Halpin, 1978). Most of the recent literature details
the clinical components of training programs and usually focuses on aspects
of the adopted supervisory model (e.g., Dell, Sheely, Pullian
and Goolishian, 1977; Stier and Goldenberg, 1975). Although there have been descriptions of the ingredients of complete training packages (e.g., Constan-
tine, 1976; Duh1
and Duh1, 1976; Garfield, 1979; LAbate,
Berger, Wright and O'Shea, 1979; Mendelsohn
and Ferber, 1972; Rosenbaum and Serrano, 1979), few have been within academic departments. Because of the documented
increase in family
therapy training within university settings, a need exists for more work in specifying teaching
models in these contexts.
This paper presenŁs a conceptual and pragmatic
framework for an introductory level family therapy course
or training experience. The
course represented in this paper was
the first level of a three-phased elective family therapy sequence in an
American Psychological Association-Approved counseling psychology department.
Gaining and Therap y: Conceptual and Pragmatic Parallels
Several components of the training situation are mirrored
in the therapeutic arena;
conversely, the therapeutic model parallel.s the model used to teach it. Examples would include:
the necessity of goal formulation, the inevitability of hierarchy in systems, the
interface of training
/ family systems with broader systems, the importance of utilizing
systemic feedback in modifying / designing interventions, the methods of accommodating
*This paper wa8 developed
during the senior
author's tenure as a faculty
member in the Department of Counseling Psychology,'lémple University. Part8 of this paper were presented at the 1980 AAMFT Annual
Conference, November 6—9, ’Ibronto,
Canada.
Howard Arthur Liddle, EdD, is Director, Family Systems Department, Institute for Juvenile
Research, 907 South Wolcott, Chicago, IL 60612.
George William Saba, MA, is a Doctoral Candidate, Department of Counseling Psychology,
Tbmple University, Philadelphia,
PA 19104.
Januarv 1982 63
various learning
styles, and sequential / stage-specific nature of training
and therapy.
The principles governing the essence of
therapy and training can be seen as reflective of each
other. For example, the constructs comprising one's theory of change in therapy reflect and can, therefore, be utilized in understanding the theory of change in
training. Both therapy and training are, at
their most elemental levels, concerned
with demonstrable behavioral change. Both attempt, as Minuchin
(1974) and Haley (1976) have said in discussing therapy,
to introduce more complexity or behavioral alternatives into the repertoires of clients and
trainees. From this perspective, it is our contention
that trainers can
be aided by a cognizance of the conceptual and pragmatic transferability of constructs from the therapeutic
to the training/teaching domain.
COURSE
DEVELOPMENT, DESIGN, AND OBJECTIVES
The teaching
model described herein is the culmination of
teaching various versions
of an entry level
graduate family therapy course over the past six
years. As teaching methods and course activities were found inefficient, they were replaced with new, more productive components. This paper represents the logical and pragmatic progression of effort in course design, format, and technique.
The generic
objective or meta-goal of the
course was to facilitate the interpersonal or systemic
paradigm shift—the capacity to conceptualize human problems
and their resolution in interactional rather than individualistic w‹iys. The interactional
perspec- tive emphasizes a holistic, ecologic,
cybernetic, objects-as-interrelated world view. This emphasis on wholes, patterns
and relationships represents a sharp contrast to the atomistic, reductionary,
Newtonian image of the world as the mechanistic aggregate of parts in
isolable causal relations.
The meta-goal of the
systemic paradigm shift served as a blueprint or foundation upon which all other objectives and course activities were based.
In becoming systemic thinkers, family therapists must be careful to remain sensitive
to the
individual differences of family members. Families are systems, but so, too, are individuals. Considerable experimental evidence has accumulated verifying the human brain's hemispheric asymmetry
and specialization (Watzlawick, 1978).
Only recently has this research been directly applied to the
therapeutic domain, although the concepts
have been discussed previously.
This research has direct and pragmatic
implications for teachers of therapy. The introductory course
was designed and modified to take
into account the individual differences or idiosyncratic
learning styles of the trainees. Our research on the effects of live supervision
confirms the importance of appreciating individual
learning styles in training
therapists. The introductory course, therefore, offered a broad spectrum
of activities and assignmeni:s designed to be receptive to hemispheric
specialization (Prosky, 1979) and
individual learning styles (Constantine, 1976; Duh1 and Duh1, 1976).
Gaining and Therapy
in lstages
Just as therapy has been viewed in stages (Haley, 1976), an introductory course or complete training package can also be conceived in a sequential or
stage-specific manner. Aspects of the strategic
(Haley, 1976) and structural schools
of therapy (Minuchin, 1974) were utilized
to form the conceptual base of the present teaching
model. Although other major schools of thought
were taught in the course, these models were especially useful in serving as an
organizing metaphor due to their
sequential nature, goal-directed focus, and conceptual clarity. The course was punctuated in three phases: joining,
Restructur- ing, and Consolidation. Th ese therapeutic stages were adapted
for use in conceptualizing the stages of teaching family therapy at the introductory level.
Phase I.’ Joining. Learning about family therapy, perhaps more than other academic
64 JOURNAL. OF MARITAL. AND FAMIET THERAPY January 1982
content areas, requires a student's willingness to suspend, at least temporarily, his existing view
of reality. Further, it requires the trainee to adopt, at least in experimental spirit, ideas about the etiology and treatment of human problems
which are often quite
alien to the student's previous training and experience. As in therapy,
experimentation with untried and foreign
ways of thinking and behaving can pose substantive personal threat in the learning
situation. From this perspective, the importance
ofjoining can be discussed.
In Structural Family
Therapy, all therapeutic operations are classified into the two categories of accommodation and restructuring. The latter set of techniques is more obvious, dramatic,
and represents the
core of Minuchin's model of therapy. However, the accommodating or joining
procedures make the stress
of the restructuring techniques tolerable
to the family system. These joining maneuvers, which sow the seeds of conceptual and
perceptual change, comprise the initial
phase of the course.
The difficulty of shifting a beginning trainee's intrapsychic, monadic epistemology of human behavior cannot be over-emphasized. The process is similar to that
which occurs with a family upon their entrance
to the therapeutic context. Families, like all other rule-governed, homeostatic systems,
are naturally resistant to change, yet the forces of homeostasis and transformation are balanced in the course
of its lifp. ’IYainees operate according to identical principles. The alteration
or abandonment of intrapersonal theories of behavior is a major transformational process in the trainee's life. This change has reverberations in both
the trainee's personal and professional contexts. ’IYainers must be
cognizant of the ways the homeostasis/transformation principle is applicable to and altered
by a systemic paradigm shift. The present model relies on the joining/
accommodation operations to set the stage for later unbalancing and eventual
transformation.
Different
therapy schools have slightly different ways
of describing this process. Haley (1976) refers
to changing the patient and family's metaphor; Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch
(1974) describe initial goals of therapy in terms of changing the world view of clients; while Minuchin (1974)
excludes the possibility of
creating new relational realities until the therapist first joins with the family system.
These representations are useful in describing the goals of the beginning phase of teaching. Students present world views and experiences of relational reality which are linear (caus effect)
and intrapsychic. Just as Haley's model of therapy stresses an initial joining with
the family's view of the identified
patient as the problem, our teaching
model stresses a first phase
characterized by strategies ofjoining
and non-confrontation. This prepares the trainee for the eventual conceptual and perceptual
restructuring—the
essential goals of the course. In this phase, it is important that the teacher be respectful and non-critical in evaluating the previous experience and training of the student.
Students, who have sometimes made considerable investments of time, energy and money in previous
training, cannot be expected to respond receptively to new
views when informed of the uselessness of their previous experience and training. In sum, the initial joining operations, as in therapy,
seem essential to successful family
therapy teaching.
Phase
I generally
occurs during the first two class meetings, or approximately 159c of the
total available classes. The two units
of study in Phase I include the role and function of theory in family therapy and the major
principles of the systems or contextual view. For
these units, students were required
to give two-page written reactions to six assigned readings. Students grapple with such questions as: What is a theory of therapy? What is its usefulness? What are the characteristics ofa usable theory? At this beginning phase of the course,
they are asked to make explicit
their own views on a personal theory
of dysfunction
(pathology) and theory of change. This is
stressed so that students can
begin to understand how one's theory,
world view, or way Of defining
therapeutic reality is relative and not absolute. Students
are taught that one's theory does not reflect
a given
January 1982 JOt/ftNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 65
"true" or "objective" reality, but instead, one's theory or view creates one's reality (Weakland and Watzlawick, 1977). In this way, "truth" or "reality"
become more one's creation than one's discovery.
The second unit of study within this initial
phase is the major constructs of systems theory (Lilienfeld, 1978). Further, this phase consists of a redefinition of symptoms from an interactional perspective as well as an appreciation for how symptoms
serve relational functions in
stabilizing and maintaining the
individual/family at any given developmental
level. Basic descriptions of these crucial
concepts are available for trainees in a variety of sources (Haley,
1971a, 1971b; Haley, 1980; Minuchin, 1974; Watzlawick et al., 1967). Although nearly twenty years since its publication, Haley's
(1963) first chapter
in his book lstrategies o( Psychotherap y, "Symptoms as tactics in human relationships," is still a
useful source in this
regard.
In sum, an organizing principle of this stage is to begin students' thinking in
interactional terms so that family, rather than
individual process, is emphasized. In this way, family therapy can be seen as an orientation
rather than as a modality method of solving human problems (Haley,
197 la). Guerin's
(1976) historical overview
of the field provides useful reading in this regard.
'l'his
first phase loosens some of the previously
held conceptions of the nature
and locus of dysfunction and therapeutic change in a manner which transcends schools of thought. The goal is to provide
a conceptual groundwork of
systems thinking upon which the various
schools of family therapy can be built.
Sluzki (1974) clearly stated the importance of a trainer's work at this phase, observing that trainees initially come to training with either a "traditional
medical model or an intra-personal psychological model,
both of which tend to
channel their initial observations and reasoning along dichotomous lines" (p. 483). Sluzki
concludes,
Thi8 poses a serious additional problem for training because, until that primary, often
unrecognized injunction is modified, no broader epistemological basis can be transmitted. Before being able to learn alternative perspectives, a trainee may have to unlearn the constrictive conviction that there are no alternatives (p. 454).
In addition, Minuchin often refers to his structural
model as a "therapy of alternatives." Like therapy, training then becomes a
broadening enterprise, oriented toward expanding
the cognitive and affective
range of trainees.
Phase II. Restructuring. In Structural Family Therapy, restructuring is the second stage of
the therapeutic proce.ss. The therapist's
joining with
the family has prepared them for the new relational realities they will
experience both within and outside
of the sessions. The principle of enactment allows
the therapist, through his direction, to give old
interactional scenarios new, more productive
endings. The therapist uses tasks to
both test the family's flexibility for change and begin the actual process
of changing the relational sequences. Again, the teaching paradigm
parallels the therapeutic processes of this stage. The
instructor has laid the conceptual groundwork for more content- oriented and substantive input and change. By this
stage, the systems or contextual framework has begun to take hold and students find themselves more able, at least experimentally, to view therapy from this new lens. Our framework for the family
therapy schools provided both a comparative
schema across schools and a comprehensive
set of dimensions
within each perspective (see 3hble 1).
Videotape and film presentations of the various
models assume considerable importance during
this second phase. These methods have empirically demonstrated their usefulness in motivating students to learn
more about and sustain interest
in the particular model under discussion (Stone,
1975). In Minuchin's terms, this phase of teaching
allows for
enactments. The theories (schools) can be enacted in the class or their enactment illustrated via film and videotape.
66 JOURNAL OF MARITAL
AND FAMILY THERAPY January 1982
The use of simulated
family sessions has been described positively (Bardill, 1976; Weingarten, 1979) and criticized in
the literature (Haley, 1976). Simulated family sessions were used as part of
one class per term, and involved one student therapist meeting with the simulated family for at least 30 minutes. The session was observed
by other students and a live supervision component was built into each simulation.
Another integral component of Phase II was the observation
papers to all films and videotapes. The observation papers were included to sharpen
student's perc•.ptual,
-. .
'Ihble
1
Dimension.. s of Wi-thin-Sch-o- ol .Theo..ry.Ana. lysi.e.
I.
Introduction
1.
Biographical Sketch:
personal background training
orientation of main proponent/
theorist.
2. Background/Development: historical and developmental aspects of the
approach. Diacussea settings in which approach was developed and problems/populations with which it haa been used.
II.
Conceptual Elements o[ the Approach
1. Philosophy and Aaaumptiona: philosophical roots and ba8ic assumptions.
2.
Normative Family Development: examines
the theory of functional families
and normal family development.
3.
Theory of
Individual/Family Dysfunction: components of dysfunctional behavior, critical event8 (developmental and innate) in the development, and acquisition of dysfunctional
behavior (how are symptoms formed and maintained?).
III. Clinical Elements o[ the Approach
1.
Goals of Therapy: nature and kind of
therapeutic objectives (expected outcomes). Address the importance and role of therapeutic goals, effects
of therapist values, and the process
of goal definition (Who definea goals and by
whom
are they evaluated?).
2.
Role and Function of the Therapist: major techniques utilized to achieve
the goals. 'Tbchniquea are discussed in terms of the kind of influence they are intended to have. Definea the behaviors
required of a therapist working from this approach. (What therapist characteristics are necessary to function
from this mode?)
3.
Process of
Therapy: the expected nature of the course
or development of therapy (stages of treatment).
4. Mechanisms and Theory of Change: describes the proceaa and ingredients that produce expected change.
Address sequence or order of change, and transferability of in-therapy
change to life outside of therapy.
Defines principles governing behavior
changes rind waya these propositions are related.
5. Basic Concepts: summary.
IV. fiuofuotion, Current istatus, end Futune Directions
1.
Contributions: defines the unique contributions of the model in
terma of both theoretical constructs and clinical utility, and research that the approach has
generated.
2. Limitationa: evaluates the
model on the criteria used for evaluating a
theory: preciaeneaa and clarity, simplicity,
comprehen8iveness, operational, heuristic value, defines the process and mechanismß of planned therapeu*vic change, predictive value,
capable of evaluation,
usefulness to practitioners,
teachability.
3. Application: explores the difficultiea
of implementing the
approach in various contexts,
discusaes the current statua of the model's
application, and offers hypothesea
on future
direction of the model'8 development and applicability.
January 1982 JO(/ftNAL OR’ MARITAL
AND KiAMILY THERAPY 67
conceptual (2bmm and Wright, 1979), and intervention-generating capacities through the use of
film or video. Students were asked to provide
their written observations to the media stimuli in the four areas on which they would be tested in the final
exam—family processes, therapist behavior, process of the session, and proposed direction of future sessions.
Phose III: Consolidation. This phase
consisted of the student’s capacity
to integrate the systemic
paradigm shift into their professional lives. Here, the personal and
professional consequences of adopting a family-oriented view assume prominence.
In therapy, families are
eventually helped to become accustomed to the changes achieved in therapy. Rainees
need assistance in "sealing" or "cementing"
these changes as well. In our
teaching, this phase consisted of the students'
efforts to integrate the systemic paradigm shift,
to the degree that they have achieved
it, into their
work setting. In their
fieldwork and work contexts students were challenged and awakened to the political and pragmatic
implications of adopting
a family-oriented view (Haley, 1975).
At the course's conclusion, most students
developed at least some cognizance of what has been termed the politics of family therapy (Liddle, l978ii. During
this phase, students faced a decision point and stage of crisis. They
learneil the pragmatic gap between learning about systems theory and being able
to implement it in non-systemic therapeutic contexts, i.e., their work
settings.
The reactions
to the assigned readings and observation papers continued through
this third phase and were joined by two
other central course activities—the family therapist interview and the critical
analysis paper. The family therapist interview was an opportunity for students to meet and interview a local practicing family therapist for the purpose of operationalizing some of their assumptions about the role
and function of a therapist working from a
family perspective. The critical analysis paper was an opportunity for students
to read the original sources of one of the many theorists covered
in Phase II of the course, present
the model in an organized way, and critique
the model according to
relevant, predetermined dimensions
(see Table 1).
The concluding activity
of Phase III was
the final exam. Since the course was not only
oriented toward the facilitation of a theoretical expertise, but was also aimed
at understanding the model's concepts along with its prescribed therapeutic
behavior, a different kind of final evaluation was devised. 2b test the
students only through their ability
to define and differentiate concepts,
apart from the clinical situation, would have been inconsistent with the
previous focus of the course. The
final exam consisted of students viewing a 60-minute videotape of an actual family session, and then answering
the series of questions appearing in
Table 2.
As previously stated, these content
areas corresponded exactly with those with which the students had gained considerable practice during
the course of the semester. This made the final evaluation a
natural culmination of the term's
activities. This evaluation procedure,
easily replicable in any context wii.h videotape equipment, serves
as a useful indicator of a trainee's capacity to think of problems
interactionally, critique therapist behavior, conceptualize overall strategy, and generate
specific interventions for future sessions.
Sizmmarizing the course, during the Joining phase, students become familiar with an interactional (sequences of
behavior) rather than intrapsychic (internal mental or emotional processes)
epistemology and language. They begin to perceive reality, and more specifically,
human problems, in units broader than
individuals. The ftes/ruc/ttring phase
challenges students to learn and experiment with new concepts from differing
schools. In the Consolidation phase, students are required
to take personal and
theoretical risks in integrating the various approaches into their professional identities.
68 Januaryl982
EVALUATION
This section
discusses the evaluation and
evolution of the course over its six-year history. At the end of each term, all students
completed an anonymous
course evaluation
Most beneficial aspects.
The tapes and films have proven to be an indispensable element
in teaching family therapy. A
number of commercially available non-therapy
oriented popular films can also be useful in helping students practice thinking in terms of family.
These include S!cenes from a
Marriage, Autumn S!onata, A Woman Under the Influence, I Neuer hang for M y
Father, Interiors, The Stubject
Was Roses, and Who's A fraid of Virginia JYoo//?
The required
written observation reports on the film and video material
have been evaluated favorably. As one student
aptly said, ”It's hard for me to speak up in a class of this size. These papers forced me to concretize my
observations and gave me the chance
to personally check out the
validity of these observations with the professor.“
Feedback on the final
exam and critical
analysis papers indicates that these
3Bble 2
Videotape observation and reactions
The following
outline ahould be used to
organize your response to the videotaped
family interview. Answer as many of the questions aa
poa8ible in the lYz-hour time
limit.
I.
F'amil y Interactions
1.
What are the major
issues this family preaent8 which need to be addressed?
Rank order these content areas according to your
priority for dealing with them as this family's
therapist.
2. What is the purpose of the symptom(s)
in relation to the total family context?
3.
Are there observable patterns of interaction which maintain the symptomatic behavior? In other words, what perpetuates the symptom?
4.
What are the patterns/sequences of family
interaction which need to be changed?
Be specific.
II. Therapist Behavior
1.
What topic or content area is the therapist interested in?
2. 'Ibchniques therapist used in getting this information.
3.
Select at least two (2) therapist techniques and hypothesize as to the rationale behind these interventions. Were the interventions
successful, and how did you evaluate their success?
4. What was the therapist's influence or impact
on the family? How did you assess that?
5. How could this impact have been dif'ferent?
III. Direction for Future lsessiona
1. What would be
your
overall therapeutic strategy or plan with thi8 family?
2.
What specific techniques would you utilize
to implement this strategy?
3. From which theoretical model/position are you working? What are the basic assumptions
of this approach?
4.
What is your theory
of change for this particular family? What must happen for the
individuals and the family to change? What specific
therapist behaviors are necessary for
effective work with this family?
5.
What problems do you foresee in attempting to implement
your strategy/techniques?
What
will you do about these problems?
6. 
How will you assess your ef'fectiveness? What are your criteria?
January 1982 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMIEY THERAPY 69
activities serve their synthesizing and integrative functions. The video final is seen as an innovative, stimulating and challenging procedure useiul in assessing one's observa-
tional and intervention-generation skills.
Leost 6ene Sof aspeets. Since the
goals of Phase I are often redundant
for some students with previous exposure to systems thinking, this
group sometimes found the beginning
phase of the course to move too slowly.
Before a consistent and comprehensive
framework was developed to present the various models, students
frequently found the course disjointed, unsystematic and lacking in
coherence. The addition of this kind and degree of structure,
however, allowed the course's objectives to become more immediately
perceived and more consistently realized.
Outcomes
The final section on Evaluation
addresses some of the students' views on the effects of the course.
One pervasive effect was the course's ability to spark student interest for
clinical training in family therapy.
Another outcome, which was at first
unexpected, concerned the
course's personal impact on the lives of the students. Although not intended to be a
course which makes the students more aware of their current
fami lies or families of origin, the systematic Study of
certain schools within the
field seemed to inevitably lead to effects in this area with some Students.
Especially after exposure
to the work of such theorists as Bowen, Framo,
and Borzormenyi-Nagy, students requested the opportunity to write family
autobiog- raphies. With or without a formal
assignment in this personal impact area a course on family therapy does affect
the personal life of many trainees. This finding has
previously been discussed by
Framo who does utilize family autobiographies as a required part of his teaching (Framo, 1979).
The more pervasive outcome
of the course, however, was in the ways it affected the Students' view of human problems. The following
comments illustrate the impact in
this regard,
It challenged me to think in new ways and rethink old issues I thought I had resolved.
My eyes have been opened to a whole new way of viewing pathology. Clients are no longer isolates to me. I see them in relation to their environment which includes the family as well as myself, the therapist.
It provided a solid theoretical rationale and body of knowledge for what I intuitively
believed before.
Finally, this last quote
sums up the disequilibrating process
often begun by a course of this
nature:
Actually, it has complicated things for m but there's positive value in getting shook up.
The final student's experience is
typical and reflective of the majority of student reactions. Once students
actively involve themselves in learning about and experience first-hand the
systemic view, they report difficulty in returning to their previous
intrapsychic epistemology of human behavior. That is, students reach a point where they might still be confused about the interface (or lack of
it) between individual and systems theory, but from a certain point onward they appear not t‹i be able to discard
the systems lens.
DISCUSSION
In his final and synthesizing work, Mind and Nature.’ A Necessary Unity, Bateson
(1979) poses some basic propositions about the relatedness of all living things.
A letter to
70 JOURNAL. OF MARITAL. AND FAWIL.Y THERAPY fl'anuacy 1982
his fellow regents of the University of California warned, “Break the pattern which connects
the items of learning
and you necessarily destroy all
quality” (1979, p.
18). The present paper has attempted to build a teaching model for an introductory level family therapy training experience. The
rationale, goals, and methods of an entry-level university-based course
have been detailed
using the stages
of therapy as a metaphor
for the presentation. In attempting to heed Bateson's dictum, we have
presented one interpretation of some patterns which connects the teaching and
practice of family therapy.
The process of solidifying our teaching
paradigm has led to the
formulation of several questions
relevant for teachers of family
therapy. This final section poses some of
these as yet unanswered questions in a spirit of issue-generation.
1.
What are “the patterns which connect”
individual learning styles and teaching methodology and content? What are
the teaching / learning implications of the recent research findings on hemispheric specialization?
2.
What are the effects of a trainer adopting any given
teaching / training mode as compared to
other models?
3.
The present paper has attempted
to describe a model of teaching family
therapy principles by using the metaphor of a pattern which connects
therapy and training. The strategic and structural schools of thought were accessed in this regard
because of their sequential, goal-directed focus. How would other teaching paradigms (using metaphors from other schools
of therapeutic thought)
be alike or dissimilar to the present model?
4.
What are the available methods of evaluating trainees? Are
these methods adequately linked to
training objectives?
5.
What is the role of the student's
personal issues and the relevance of personal growth in the training-learning
process? Are these dimensions tied to particular training paradigms? Or are they inevitabilities of the training
process?
6.
Whitaker (1976)
has been known to declare to a family, “I'm here to get some things for
myself, too.” In this way, he presents the family with the idea that he, as well as they, will be
trying to obtain something positive
from the therapeutic encounter. Should supervisors, at least covertly, make the same “selfish” demands of their work?
7.
Along these same lines, we might ask the question, Are
there teaching / training methodologies which prematurely precipitate trainer
burn-out? A recent survey assessing psychotherapy trainees' preferences
regarding various aspects of supervision emphasized the importance of a
supervisor's morale, motivation, and committment to supervision, at least as
perceived by the trainee (Nelson, 1978).
Along these lines, which supervisory models
contribute to high and low supervisor
interest?
8.
What usual and non-traditional mechanisms exist for
sharing information, techniques, philosophies, etc., of
teaching family therapy?
How can trainers begin to observe, trade, and refine their teaching
methods as the pioneer family therapists did
with their therapeutic methods in the
1950s
and 1960s? Along these lines, few conference/workshop
availabilities exist specifically on training / supervision. Is it premature
to hope for more effort
along these lines?
In conclusion, our hope is that the
teaching model presented in this paper will stimulate more interest in building
theoretical paradigms of the training
process—an activity that has lagged
behind construction of therapy theories. This paper represents one view of some patterns connecting
training and therapy and is offered as a reference point which can facilitate other training model generation and development.
January
1982 JOURNAL OF ñfARITA AND FAñfILY THERAPY
