The Expertise Question Revisited: Horizontal and Vertical Expertise

This article deals with the developments taking place in the field of family therapy from the expertise perspective, and as an expert practice. This development is looked at as a dialectical movement between two types of expertise, namely vertical and horizontal expertise. This spatial metaphor is put forward as a complementary alternative to the prevailing modern/postmodern debate. A brief account of the development of the study of science and of expertise is provided. The author suggests that the richness of current family therapeutic thinking owes something to both these different modes of expertise, the division not being as exclusive as some postmodernist authors suggest.