Culture and System in Family Therapy

Starting with the MacPherson Report and its pronouncements on racism in Britain and in particular 'institutionalised racism', Dr Krause focuses in this important book on the practice of family therapy and draws on her expertise as both anthropologist and systemic family psychotherapist to formulate a cogent critical evaluation of the field. At the heart of her book, furnished with very useful clinical material is a concern to identify the necessary conditions for an 'anti-discriminatory, non-ethnocentric and ethical way of working cross-culturally'. In illuminating the way in which underlying and frequently unexamined assumptions serve to perpetuate institutionally discriminatory outcomes, the author outlines a model for the development of a culturally sensitised, questioning, and self-reflexive practice. This book will serve as an individual reference-point for all those concerned to avoid and eliminate institutional discrimination.

Inga-Britt Krause

Editors' Foreword , Foreword , Introduction , Culture and Systemic Thinking , System , Culture , Culture and system , Information and experience , Cross-Cultural Clinical Work , Connectedness and rationality , Choosing meaning: 1 , Choosing meaning: 2 , From Macpherson to ethnography , Appendix: The Reflective Loop