The Family Systems Lineage

Every other lineage in psychotherapy takes the individual as its unit of analysis. The family systems tradition made a different move: the problem is not in the person but in the pattern. Influenced by cybernetics, general systems theory, and anthropology, the pioneers of family therapy — Bateson, Minuchin, Haley, Bowen, Satir, Selvini Palazzoli — argued that symptoms are maintained by the relational system, not by individual pathology. Treat the system and the symptom resolves. This insight — that context is not background but the thing itself — produced structural, strategic, systemic, Bowenian, and experiential family therapies, and eventually led to the postmodern turn: narrative therapy, solution-focused brief therapy, collaborative therapy, and Open Dialogue.