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FAMILY INTERVIEWING, or family therapy as some prefer to call it, is by now a well-established, fashionable modality of psychotherapy and, for analysts engaged in such work, one of the many branches of applied psychoanalysis. As yet there is no adequate formulation of the meaning of "applied psychoanalysis, " for it is difficult indeed to define what psychoanalytic training adds to the practice of social and community psychiatry, and to what degree and precisely why a psychoanalyst may contribute more to such programs than analogous professionals without such training.
The recent interest in family development and family life, as well as the sprouting up of various forms of group therapy, seems to reflect a trend against isolation and loneliness, deeply felt by a large segment of the population, young and old. Some view this as a trend against individualism, which, I think, is a misconception. Stress is placed on independence in the sense of living alone as soon as one is out of school, or before finishing college, and on earning a living; but, important as that might be, it does not necessarily develop individuality. All too often it contributes to isolation and a kind of pseudo-independence.
Major patterns of contemporary social change seem to reflect a reaction to this pseudo-individualistic trend of recent decades. And I am not certain that we, as psychoanalysts, were not caught up in the same process and have not contributed to this social malaise rather than helping to cure it.