Written by an experienced practitioner who is also an Anglican deacon, this book sets out to describe the theory and practice of family therapy. Every minister of the gospel will be sure to meet families presenting a whole range of problems. This book provides a thorough, clear introduction to one way of helping them. Those who have no particular background in counselling theory and techniques will find it rather specialized and technical, though it is sure to stimulate thinking, and wrestling with insights and ideas not considered before. It reflects a Catholic Anglicanism and has an interesting final chapter entitled ‘Towards a Theology of the Family’ (which omits any reference to the writings of Paul), but evangelicals will feel that biblical and theological concepts and principles should be given a more controlling role than they are.

The book begins by explaining certain key ideas in family therapy. These ideas are then developed in chapters which describe and illustrate the counselling process itself and some of the various approaches which can be adopted. The author is highly practical and examples from case-work make her meaning clear. The starting-point is that the family must be considered as a whole, and counselled as a whole. Even problems which may appear to concern only one member of the family must be viewed in the context of the whole because the family consists of a network of relationships which all interact with each other. The objective of family therapy is to help the family function better by bringing about structural change. In achieving this the balance of responsibility rests with the family rather than the counsellor.

What, however, is a family? The author insists that we must ‘avoid sacralising one kind of family structure’; we have to face the fact that families come in many varieties and forms. We also need to avoid a static view of the family, since family life changes as it passes through the family life cycle (she outlines seven stages in this), each change imposing its own particular strain on the family. The author believes that understanding can often be gained by constructing a genogram, or family tree, which maps out family history and locates its members in their relational position.

In all this there is a great deal that is of positive value and it is surprising that the concept of treating the family as a whole is such a recent development, an unfortunate result of the individualistic tendency in Western thinking. There are questions, however. If the concern is simply with family dysfunction and restructuring relationships to enable it to function more adeuqately, where is the place for individual sin, for apology and forgiveness? And what is a family like when it is functioning well? Is it just that its members relate well to each other, and to people outside the family, or does it function in particular ways pleasing to God and made known by him?

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