Vignettes of families in transition, of new and old family violence
- in a delicate, resonant interplay of fact, fiction, and imaginary
dialogues by one of our most esteemed family therapists. The aim:
to learn "our connectedness," to explore "the infinite
possibilities of flexibility and cooperation." A family moving
through divorce ("Trio") establishes new, strengthening roles for
both the older and younger daughter; two families in the process of
blending ("Quartet"), and stuck in simultaneously negotiating
issues of belonging and distancing, must disaffiliate and
reaffiliate - without either "side" triumphing. In both cases,
Minuchin stresses "the creative possibilities of the new organism,"
the traditional family as only one "of many possible family
shapes." Then, from a '60s consultation in Amsterdam involving a
Marxist commune of four, he composes a playlet ("The Key") in which
the group succumbs to individual needs. "The crux of the idea is
that while you can initiate, you can't entirely predict
consequences." Centrally positioned and focal is "An Anorectic
Family." All Minuchin's anorectic patients, he's found, come from
families where the boundaries are blurred: in the Italian American
Genottis we see Mama and eldest daughter Loretta, almost 16, locked
in a subtle, deadly conflict that this family wishes not to
recognize. ("What you're saying, Loretta, is that it's not a total
change, but you would like your mother to be less worried about
you. . . .") Part II, "Patterns of Violence," is even more a
kaleidoscope: rueful reference to Minuchin's early work at Wiltwyck
School for delinquents (on the basis of which "I became Professor
of Child Psychiatry. . ."); a day-in-a-British-court, where ("in
the best interest of the child") one after another family is
dismembered; the 1973 murder of Mafia Colwell, age seven - basis of
the present British system; the 1835 murder of his mother, and two
siblings allied with her, by French peasant Pierre Riviere, his
father's champion (in its milieu, the family couldn't integrate or
separate); a recent Norwegian case of alcoholic violence and
healing - all directed toward institutional and attitudinal change.
(For one: fostered families instead of fostered children.) The last
section - Minuchin's re-envisioning, in play-form, of the pre-WW I
case of Ellen West, an anorectic suicide - is a direct attack on
"existential psychiatry's commitment to its own
conceptualizations," and a satire (which the commune-playlet is
not). Up to a point, it's successful as parody - but in its length
and repetition it grows tiresome, even/especially as a mirror-image
of the Genottis. The book has emotional and intellectual drama. It
speaks at once for family therapy and (like Bohannon, above, but
far more effectively) for family, all-family, mindedness. (Kirkus
Reviews)
With characteristic insight, compassion, and dry humor, the grand
master of family therapy Salvador Minuchin challenges us to
meditate on some of the most perplexing-and profound-questions of
the day: Why is our image of the ideal family so far from the
common reality? When we have such a rich literature of individual
psychology, why is the family comparatively neglected? Why does our
legal system promote confrontation rather than cooperation?
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