FOREWORD
Perhaps I shouldn t reveal it (especially in this era when the
word \"politics\" has such a bad connotation}， but I believe that
the practices invited by this challenging book go beyond being
transformative at the level of the individual {familial) patient:
They constitute a strong， progressive， political activity. At a
certain level， therapy is always political. This is radical politics
at its best.
Family therapy， and， broadly speaking， systemic brief thera-
pies， had， as it is well-known， a multitudinous and rather fa-
moas ancestry: cybernetics， general systems theory， field theo-
ry， game theory， psychoanalytic object relations theory， and
communication theory， to name but the most frequently recog-
nized contributers to the genome of the discipline. But from
this list is missing another parent， who has been less sung or
who， perhaps， in this Reagan (and post-Reagan!) era of self-
started individualism， has cautiously shied away from the lime-
light: I am referring to the progressive political movement of
the fifties and sixties. In the field of mental health， this move-
mhTt triggered， as a spinoff of community-sensitive activism，
revision of many practices and above all the deinstitution.
allzation reform (or was it revolution?)， carrying as a banner the
romantic passion of anti-psychiatry and the rhetoric and prac-
tice of social empowerment and social justice.
This root， forgotten as it may be， permeated the early years
of the field. From its beginning， in fact， family therapy was
heralded as a radical alternative to the established traditions of
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