The ‘healthy’ family*

The importance of concepts and hypotheses about ‘healthy’ families for family therapists is stressed. A number of different approaches to defining ‘health’ is described. Concepts and hypotheses of family therapists from different schools are integrated into a more encompassing theory, thereby focusing on statements with respect to personality, cognition, behaviour, communication, relationship, role, family system and network. It is noted that family therapy literature lacks information about ‘healthy’ families. Moreover, nearly all statements are non-scientific and normative as they are not founded on empirical research.