Epistemological confusion in family therapy and research

Family therapy began as a movement sparked by a small group of behavioral scientists who challenged the orthodoxies of medical and psychodynamic therapies. This movement signalled the beginning of an epistemological shift, the roots of which can be found early in this century in the physical sciences. As the field has grown and become for many a means of livelihood rather than an experimental thrust, though exploration of epistemological issues has continued, a split has developed in the field that mirrors the epistemological split currently visible in Western society. The predominant reality system of the Western world remains rooted in Cartesian/Newtonian, nineteenth-century mechanistic and reductionistic "common sense," even though the basis for a new, nonmechanistic and nonreductionistic reality system has been emerging in the twentieth century. The juxtaposition of both reality systems in the field of family therapy has produced much confusion. This article attempts to clarify the basis for that confusion.