Red Sistémica · Family therapy
Family therapy: current trends and future prospects. A lecture by William Pinsof
It was under this title that Bill Pinsof opened the inaugural day of the 23rd National Family Therapy Congress, held in Salamanca. Ricardo Ramos, correspondent of the Catalan Association of Family Therapy, reports on this plenary lecture: Pinsof speaks of the North American territory he knows well – the United States, Mexico and Canada – and includes in it, beyond systemic family therapy in the strict sense, developments in couple therapy and individual therapy which, without always acknowledging their lineage, bear the mark of systemic thinking.
Editor’s note
The text republished by Red Sistémica is a fragment: it introduces the lecture and lists the five current trends identified by Pinsof, then breaks off. The complete article appeared in no. 81 of Perspectivas Sistémicas. We translate it as it stands, interruption included.
Introduction
It was under this title that Bill Pinsof opened the inaugural day of the 23rd National Family Therapy Congress, held recently in Salamanca. And he opened it in a predictable way, given the title: current trends and the prospects taking shape are connected.
Two preliminary remarks. Pinsof refers to the territory of North America, the field he knows well: the United States, Mexico and Canada. And he includes in his reflection not only systemic family therapy sensu stricto, but also developments in couple therapy and individual therapy which, even if they do not explicitly acknowledge their kinship with systemic thinking, contain, both in their theorizing and in their practice, elements related to it.
Pinsof the empiricist
Pinsof presented the current trends grouped under five headings:
a
Empirically validated treatments
The development of empirically validated treatments.
b
Integrated theories and treatments
The emergence of integrated theories and treatments.
c
Qualitative versus quantitative
The battle between the qualitative and quantitative research traditions and their reference epistemologies.
d
Multiculturalism
The emergence of multiculturalism.
e
The profession
The emergence of the profession with others (and against others).
… (to be continued)
Notes from the original
Notes. The complete article is to be found in no. 81 of the periodical Perspectivas Sistémicas, corresponding to the months of May-June 2004, on sale at newsstands and specialized bookshops in Capital Federal, or by subscription within the country and abroad.
(*) This article was originally published in the journal Mosaico (journal of the Spanish Federation of Family Therapy Associations), no. 25; it is the synthesis of the plenary lecture of the 23rd National Family Therapy Congress “Family therapy in the third millennium. Challenges and opportunities,” held in Salamanca on 1, 2 and 3 November 2002.
(1) The systemically oriented research carried out by Valentín Escudero (University of A Coruña, Spain) and his North American counterpart Myrna Friedlander (State University, New York, United States) on the process of the therapeutic alliance (originally published in Mosaico no. 25 and reproduced in Perspectivas Sistémicas, no. 77) could perhaps be regarded as a good example of what Pinsof puts forward. (Ed. note: this comment does not belong to the original publication.)
This article is an English translation of “Terapia familiar: tendencias actuales y perspectivas futuras: William M. Pinsof, Ph. D.”, published by Red Sistémica (first published in Mosaico (Fédération espagnole d’associations de thérapie familiale), n° 25, repris dans Perspectivas Sistémicas, n° 81, mai-juin 2004). Translated and republished with the journal’s permission.
Read the original articleHow to cite this article
Ramos, R. (2022). Family therapy: current trends and future prospects. A lecture by William Pinsof (Complexe Systémique, Trans.). Complexe Systémique. https://app.complexe-systemique.com/en_GB/articles/family-therapy-current-trends-and-future-prospects-a-lecture-by-william-pinsof (Original work published in 2004 in Mosaico (Fédération espagnole d’associations de thérapie familiale), n° 25, repris dans Perspectivas Sistémicas, n° 81, mai-juin 2004; republished in 2022 by Red Sistémica, https://redsistemica.ar/2022/07/19/terapia-familiar-tendencias-actuales-y-perspectivas-futuras-william-m-pinsof-ph-d/)
To go further
- Systemic therapy: its origins, its present and its future. Interview with Jay HaleyAnother assessment of the state of the field, by one of its founders.
- Community interventions. Interview with Celia FalicovMulticulturalism, one of the five trends noted by Pinsof, taken from the clinical side.
- The importance of family therapy. Interview with Salvador MinuchinThe question of the future and the legitimacy of the profession, raised by a pioneer.
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