Creating an Ethical Position in Family Therapy

There are two kinds of therapists, one who knows more or less consciously the kind of interpretation of dreams he will get; and the other, the psychologist who does not know. I am entirely on the side of the latter, who does not want something precise. He is ready to receive what he will receive. He cannot know what method he will use beforehand. He is, so to speak, in the hands of his patient.

Martin Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 1965b, p. 37

To practice from an ethical perspective in family therapy, we must appreciate the dilemmas of our clients as genuine ones. In the family we presented in the previous chapter, the dilemmas included the mother's concern about the separation experience with her oldest son, the son's terrorizing experiences in school, the younger son's confusion about what makes his older brother "tick", and the father's dilemma of how to teach his oldest son to be a well-functioning adolescent in the world of interpersonal relationships. Our job was to create an atmosphere in which

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