Organizing concepts in family therapy

Abstract

Harry Stack Sullivan (1953, p. 11) spoke fondly of the time when therapy would become “easy.” By that he meant he looked forward to the day practitioners would know precisely what to do to help their clients regardless of the symptoms they presented. He was wise enough to know, of course, that the time he anticipated would not arrive soon, for he said he would be a long-forgotten myth before it came. Those who practice in the third decade after Sullivan's demise know that we are probably no closer to the halcyon conditions he longed for than he and his associates were in the 1940's. In fact, psychotherapy is under stronger attack for lack of precision (effectiveness) now than at any time in the recent past.