Honouring our great grandparents: towards a rhetorical analysis of family therapy

This paper argues that family therapy is an inherently and inescapably rhetorical activity, although its connections with rhetoric have remained largely ignored and the implications for practice unexplored. An uncritical acceptance of a range of postmodern ideas has led many family therapists to ignore the power of their therapeutic rhetoric. The paper offers rhetorical analysis as a tool to help family therapists to reflect on the rhetorical power of their practice and thereby to exercise this power more responsibly.