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For three decades of its existence, family therapy has been, in Lynn Hoffman's words, ‘an endeavour in search of a theory’. In few other disciplines would it have been possible for a student to choose among so many different schools, each claiming to offer unique insights for their brand of therapy. Partly this springs from the fact that family therapy is struggling to contain two totally opposite epistemologies. One developed from the theoretical ideas of Freudian psychoanalysis, was linked with classical scientific models, presumed a linear causality and focused on the individual and his intrapsychic processes. The other stemmed from the work of those who had been influenced by modern mathematical and biological sciences and is linked with developments in communications theory and computer technology. It includes work in general systems theory, in cybernetics and in information theory. It considers the individual and his environment as a system, interlocking within a series of interrelated biological and sociological systems influenced by a circular causality.
This initial split became prominent in the seventies with the development of schools of family therapy; the literature reflected the mood. Practitioners rushed into print. Some books, like Minuchin's Families and Family Therapy or Haley's Problem-solving Therapy became classics in the field. Other important contributions were the collections of papers, like those of Guerin (1976) or Paolino and McCrady (1978). But it is a psychologist, Michael Nichols, a student of family therapy in many settings, who is the first to attempt a comprehensive review of the whole field from its earliest days. Undeterred by ‘an apparently chaotic development that incorporates conflicting and contradictory points of view’ (page 3) he seeks throughout to illuminate the underlying principles that bind, rather than divide, the differing schools. And this is not all; along with the main history, he includes parallel developments in ad