Relating to knowledge: challenges in generating and using theory for practice in family therapy*

This paper explores knowledge and how family therapy relates to its own knowledge. It begins with the identification of particular puzzles that have emerged through the author's involvement in family therapy, and ends with a reflection on these same puzzles following the main theoretical exploration. The exploration first considers the issue of the generation of knowledge in the context of practice disciplines, and then discusses disciplinarity and the dynamics of competitiveness and oppositionality that go alongside this social structuring of knowledge. This discussion paves the way for an exploration of these dynamics in family therapy, including the competitiveness in relation to different models within family therapy, and the tendency for theory development to be represented in terms of discontinuity rather than continuity. The relationship between theory and practice is recast through this investigation, and an argument is made for using a layered epistemology to inform our relationship to knowledge.