Couple Therapy. Frank Bockus. New York:  Jason Aronson, 1980,  300 pp.: The Family Life Cycle: A Framework for Family Therapy. Elizabeth A. Carter and Monica McGoldrick (Eds.). New York:  Gardner Press, 1980,  xxiii + 468 pp. Techniques of Family Therapy. David S. Freeman. New York:  Jason Aronson, 1981,  350 pp. The Bowen Family Theory and Its Uses. C. Margaret Hall. New York:  Jason Aronson, 1981,  304 pp.

Family therapists advocate that the family become the patient. Psychoanalysts look at the dynamic interaction of the personality's component agencies, the functions of each, and the structure and history of the whole. Family therapists look at the dynamic-interaction of the members of the family, the role functions of each, and the structure and history of the whole.

Psychoanalysts maintain objectivity by giving free floating attention equally to all patient communications representing id, ego, and superego. Family therapists maintain objectivity by remaining equidistant from all members of the family. Psychoanalysts use their professioal judgment to decide on the nature of the intervention. Family therapists do the same. Will the interpretation be directed at the superego? Illuminate drives? Attempt to reduce acting out? Will the family therapist address the family rules, the self-indulgent family member, the psychosomatically ill? The one who overachieves?

To the family therapist, the identified patient is the symptom carrier of the family organism. She or he lives out the family unconscious, the family myth, becomes scapegoat, delegate, buffer. Improve the structure, functions and dynamics of the organized whole, and the symptom will fall away, unless the pathological conflict has been so firmly internalized by one family member that it impedes further development, thus necessitating individual treatment. However, even one individual can be in family therapy. It is said that family therapy can take place with the family in the