The Advance of Poststructuralism and Its Influence

on Family Therapy
VICTORIA C. DICKERSON*

Postmodernism began to influence family therapy very early in the 1980s with articles
referencing postmodern ideas, focusing on meaning and multiplicity. With the appearance
of narrative therapy on the scene in the 1990s there was a shift toward poststructural
thinking, which refined the movement and politicized the clinical work. Even with a bit of
a backlash, whether because this was a new idea or it somehow threatened a positivistic
culture, a poststructural view has continued to have effects on family therapy. This article
explores the variety of influences: the expansion of narrative ideas, the innovation of Mad-
sen’s collaborative helping, and also more nuanced effects. I argue that a poststructural
view has effectively changed how many family therapists think and may also be subtly
influencing how they might work.

Keywords: Poststructuralism; Narrative; Collaborative; Family Therapy

Fam Proc 53:401–414, 2014

I n the somewhat short history—approximately 60 years—of family therapy, there have

been critical influences that have changed the trajectory of the thinking and substan-
tively redirected the practice. One of these influences has been postmodernism/poststruct-
uralism, beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present. How exactly has the
postmodern turn—more specifically a poststructural epistemology—affected how family
therapists conceptualize and thus perform their work?
In the mid-1970s, I was teaching family therapy at Santa Clara University and simulta-
neously taking classes at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, learning from such
sages as Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch (1974). I was steeped in strategic approaches
and was understanding the family in what then were considered normative ways: White,
heterosexual, middle class. I was the expert, manipulating family roles, structure, and
dynamics to suit some standardized idea of how the family members were supposed to
relate. I fell in love with the paradoxical injunction and began to follow the work of the
Milan team (Selvini-Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin, & Prata, 1980), eventually going to
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 1985 to study with Imber-Black (1985,1 Imber-Black, 1988),
Gary Sanders, and Tomm (1987a,b, 1988). I began to include the use of a one-way mirror
and team reflections when possible. I even employed the intersession break, so that clients

*Private practice, Aptos CA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be address to Victoria C. Dickerson, 203 Santa Clara
Ave., Aptos, CA 95003. E-mail: vcd@cruzio.com
My immense gratitude goes to Evan Imber-Black for her willingness to critique and edit two earlier
drafts of this article; to Bill Madsen for sharing his poststructural thoughts; to Jill Freedman for sending
me her excellent article on “The Absent but Implicit”; to Kaethe Weingarten, for our many conversations
over time and for introducing me to the Gordon passage on Dorothea Lange; and to the very fine review
from the Family Process reviewer.
1
This article was published under Imber Coopersmith.
401
Family Process, Vol. 53, No. 3, 2014 © 2014 FPI, Inc.
doi: 10.1111/famp.12087
402 / FAMILY PROCESS

got used to my stepping out of the room (even when there wasn’t a team, which was most
often).
In the 1980s, I came across Hoffman’s Foundations of Family Therapy (1981) and
started to use it in my family therapy teaching. I became acquainted with writings such as
Gergen’s (1985, 1991), who was defining social constructionism; more of Hoffman’s (1985,
1992) work, who was operationalizing the constructing of realities; and Dell (1982), who
took issue with the concept of homeostasis. They were calling into question earlier taken-
for-granted ways of thinking in family therapy, and I became aware that something very
different was happening.
What was this “something different” and how would it change family therapy? This was
postmodernism: a philosophical movement that was a shift from a modernist to a postmod-
ernist influence on architecture, painting, literature, music, politics, physical and biologi-
cal sciences, which began to infiltrate the field of psychology in the late 1970s and early
1980s. It included social constructionism and deconstructive practices, and it seemed to
affect family therapy very early in its history. For example, Anderson, Goolishian, and
Winderman (1986) speak of problem-determined systems as a step away from the earlier
system-determined problems. Walter Truett Anderson’s Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be
(1990) is a tribute to the influence of postmodernism on family therapy.
In 1988, when I first met Michael White, I was already enamored of a postmodern way
of thinking. My experience with Michael was like a lightning bolt: It helped me to know
that I could live and perform many different versions of myself. I realized that here was a
way of thinking that didn’t subscribe to pathological beliefs or to essentialist notions. I
didn’t have to be a certain way, I could perform my life differently; I didn’t have to fit
within a norm, I could create an identity that more suited how I wanted to be. I started to
read and study the narrative metaphor, knowing that here was a therapy that fit how I
wanted to think and work as a therapist. It was from this narrative approach of White and
Epston (1990), located in a postmodern framework, that poststructuralism, discourse
analysis, and positioning theory took form.

Poststructuralism
When Hare-Mustin (1987) addressed the problem of gender in family therapy, she chal-
lenged the way family therapy theory was resting on normative concepts, and was noticing
how little attention family therapists were paying to the inequalities associated with gen-
der. This article changed the way therapists thought about their work and how they
addressed couples and families.
Weingarten’s (1991, 1992) articles on “Discourses of Intimacy” deconstructed previously
unquestioned ideas about intimacy, and later, Hare-Mustin’s (1994) “Discourses in the
Mirrored Room” became a reflection for how one might think in the therapy room.
These authors positioned themselves within a poststructural epistemology, using
discourse theory and social constructionism to question what were thought of as “settled
certainties” (White, 1995). In the 1990s, different approaches came onto the scene:
solution-focused, collaborative language systems, narrative, “just” therapy, all of them
meaning and language based, situated in discourse theory and social justice, rather than
system or pattern based. They were the first indicators of a poststructural approach in the
world of family therapy.

POSTMODERNISM OR POSTSTRUCTURALISM
Many conflate the terms “postmodern” and “poststructural,” although the latter is
a more precise term. Madsen (2014b) and others use the two terms interchangeably,

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presumably because the difference may have little relevance to clients and perhaps for
most therapists. I do think, however, that an understanding of this epistemology may be
helpful to how we, as therapists, work with our clients.
As I have commented elsewhere (Dickerson, 2010), poststructuralism is “a distinct
response to and a critique of structuralism” (p. 354), whether that structure is a normative
family or couple or theoretical view. For the therapist, this allows the noticing of possibili-
ties, multiple viewpoints, multiple identities, multiple ways that one might perform one’s
life. A poststructural view reflects Foucault’s (1980) emphasis on knowledge and power,
calling into question who has power and authority, and how that affects the power rela-
tionships (e.g., the therapist and the client, the couple, the family). Madsen comments that
a poststructural position can “make visible the politics that are always present” (personal
communication, 2014).

THE NARRATIVE METAPHOR

In Australia and New Zealand, two social workers, White and Epston, began to develop
what some were calling “a whole new approach to family therapy” (Epston, 2009), “a
unique style of family therapy” (Denborough, 2009). Early on in their work, White and
Epston wrote: “We have been steadfast in our refusal to name our work in any consistent
manner. We do not identify with any particular ‘school’ of family therapy. . .” (Epston &
White, 1992). Indeed, their approach only acquired a “name” when in the late 1980s,
Cheryl White encouraged Michael to privilege the narrative metaphor in his work (White,
2000); the seminal book by White and Epston is entitled: Narrative Means to Therapeutic
Ends (1990).

SYSTEMS VERSUS NARRATIVE METAPHOR

Michael White made a clear, although somewhat thin, distinction between systems
thinking and a narrative approach in a 1995 essay, where he stated, “These meta-
phors (system and pattern vs. narrative) are located in very different traditions of
thought, and have very different political consequences with regard to therapeutic
intervention” (p. 220). A further conversation (Dickerson, 2010) thickened this distinc-
tion by looking at how these distinct metaphors understand the person, problem
formation, and how change occurs. A systems approach resides in a structural episte-
mology where problems are located within family interactions, so that working with
notions of pattern and relationship dynamics makes sense. A narrative approach
understands problems as produced by cultural meaning systems and as having real
effects on how persons make meaning of (story) their lives. It draws on social justice
and politicized realities to make meaning of problem formation and one’s personal
experience of the problem and its effects. Change occurs in the collaborative process of
inquiry in which the possibilities for alternative meanings, identities, and life perfor-
mances can arise.

Narrative Therapy as a Poststructural Approach

The narrative approach considers person, problem, and change within a poststructural
viewpoint. This metaphor understands problems as located in and produced by cultural
understandings of what is normative, which then affect persons in that they tend to inter-
nalize the problem as something wrong about them. The narrative therapist conceptual-
izes problems as separate from people, opening space for alternative possibilities and a
more preferred performance of their lives.

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In the 1990s, family theorists and therapists began to embrace “narrative” as articles
appeared in Family Process (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1992;2 Zimmerman & Dickerson,
1994), a special section in the Journal of Systemic Therapies (Dickerson & Zimmerman,
1996; Freedman & Combs, 1996b; Zimmerman & Dickerson, 1996a), among others. The
cover story in what was then known as The Family Therapy Networker for November/
December 1994 was entitled: “Psychotherapy’s Third Wave? The Promise of Narrative”
with an excellent article about Michael White by Sykes Wylie (1994). Narrative therapy
even made the popular press in a 1995 article in Newsweek: “Rewriting Life Stories.”
I recall meeting a couple in my waiting room around this time with the male member of
the couple waving the magazine in his hand, saying “I checked you out.” Two books by
north American authors also arrived within months of each other in 1996: Narrative Ther-
apy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities by Freedman and Combs (1996a), and
If Problems Talked: Narrative Therapy in Action by Zimmerman and Dickerson (1996b).
Around the same time, a parallel strain of postmodern thinking was occurring in the
work of Harlene Anderson and Harry Goolishian at the Galveston Family Institute. It was
called collaborative language systems, situated in a hermeneutics tradition, understand-
ing that meaning is carried by language and that how we speak influences what we think
and how we act (Anderson, 1997; Anderson & Goolishian, 1988). Their work adopted a
“not-knowing” stance, a nondirective position, from which they elicited the client’s mean-
ing about their experience. Anderson’s (2012a) work continues to evolve, clearly within a
poststructural metaphor, moving away from assumed traditions of knowledge toward
what she calls a “relationally responsive practice.” Her You Tube video (Anderson, 2012b)
that is an abstract of her article gives an excellent example of her current work.

Restraints to a Poststructural Influence

However, the question arose whether narrative therapy was family therapy at all (Min-
uchin, 1998), and a lively discussion ensued with narrative aficionados arguing that it cer-
tainly was (Combs & Freedman, 1998; Tomm, 1998). There is a You Tube video (Minuchin
& White, 2009) that shows Minuchin and White continuing this conversation at an Evolu-
tion of Psychotherapy Conference several years ago.
In the first decade of the 21st century, there seemed to be a stalling of the new, post-
structural approaches. Was this a “backlash” effect, an inevitable consequence of a reac-
tion to any new idea; the effect of this new idea growing fast and spreading thin; or was a
poststructural viewpoint coming up against a mounting scientism, the push for “evidence-
based” approaches, the insurance companies’ insistence on verifiable outcome? (See, for
example, Patterson, Miller, Carnes, & Wilson, 2004; and an APA Presidential Task Force
on Evidence-Based Practice, 2006.)
I believe it was all of the above. An article that is “a retrospective view of the evolution
of family therapy” (Dickerson, 2007) begins by commenting that “social constructionism is
over,” based on the observations of a university professor. The idea is that social construc-
tionism is “too hard,” that students have difficulty dealing with uncertainties and ambigu-
ities. Many teachers undoubtedly are familiar with students simply wanting to know
“what to do” rather than “how to think,” so perhaps the idea that poststructuralism and/or
social constructionism is “too hard” makes sense. “Tell me what to take, tell me what
to do,” is a statement that is also understandable especially in a societal context where
colleges may be held responsible for whether or not students get a job postdegree.

2
This was the first article on a narrative approach in Family Process, although Michael White had writ-
ten two articles previously, one on anorexia (1983), and another (1986) on a Batesonian view of
“restraints.”

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EVALUATION
In an excellent rendition of a narrative metaphor in a somewhat hidden book chapter,
Crocket (2008) addresses the “evaluation” of narrative therapy. She comments that
research is a modernist project in which nomothetic research with its value of generaliz-
ability makes sense. However, the poststructuralists would tend to emphasize more local,
interpretive, idiographic accounts, an approach that does not sit well in a dominant posi-
tivist culture. There is currently an interest group that has met for the last 5 years at the
American Family Therapy Academy Annual Meeting, entitled “Evaluating Poststructural
Narrative Therapies,” that addresses this very paradox. The group has struggled with the
dilemma that Crocket proposes, and has invited therapists who are working to create an
“evidence-base” for a narrative/poststructural approach to share their findings.
In Madsen’s newest book (Madsen & Gillespie, 2014), he states that the book “grew out
of interview and focus groups with frontline workers and people they serve. . . . Their
responses have contributed to a practice-based evidence that builds this framework from
the ground up” (author’s italics) (p. 2). A “practice-based evidence” approach starts from
the bottom up, focusing on the clients’ feedback and critique of the collaborative experi-
ence in which they become involved.

INTEGRATION
Also during this first decade of the 21st century, there were attempts to integrate nar-
rative ideas and practices with other approaches; many theorists and therapists were
enamored of Michael White and his work, so they embraced some of the work (but not
always the thinking), utilizing different facets to try to make a whole. Madsen’s collabora-
tive helping maps (Madsen, 2011, 2014a) is an excellent example of a poststructural over-
view within which he employs a variety of different theories, some poststructural and
some more structural in their practices.

The Ongoing Efforts of Poststructural Therapies

In the months after Michael White’s passing, a Family Process Special Section (Dicker-
son, 2009) entitled “The Legacy of Michael White” addressed the future of narrative think-
ing. The authors pointed to possibilities for the extension and expansion of poststructural
thinking, including a “thickening” of Michael White’s newer emphasis on the “absent but
implicit” (Carey, Walther, & Russell, 2009), as well as a look at how Michael was thinking
about the work of Gilles Deleuze, referring to an unfinished conversation John Winslade
had with Michael the night he died. This results in a wonderfully inventive article entitled
“Tracing Lines of Flight” (Winslade, 2009), in which the author suggests that one small
difference can change the entire trajectory of one’s life. This calls to mind White’s (2007)
comment that “. . .the difference that can be made by the appropriate question at the
appropriate time never fails to surprise me” (p. 133).

HOW NARRATIVE THERAPISTS MIGHT WORK

How might one recognize poststructural work in the therapy room? It is undoubtedly as
variable as the multiple iterations that exist in this third or fourth decade of poststructur-
al influence. Jill Freedman and Gene Combs, for example, may follow most closely the
influence of Michael White (Freedman & Combs, 1996a, 2008). Freedman (2012) writes
eloquently about the “absent but implicit,” extending one of the newer initiatives Michael
was including in his thinking and also building on the previous article by Carey et al.
(2009). I pay attention to power relationships with couples (Dickerson, 2013; Dickerson &

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Crocket, 2010) and notice discourse in multiple ways in the work (Dickerson, 2010). Wein-
garten, influenced by a hermeneutics approach and the work of Anderson and Goolishian,
focuses on “witnessing.” Her recent articles (2010, 2012, 2013) clearly demonstrate post-
structural thinking. Madsen explores family-centered practices in his “Collaborative Help-
ing Maps” (2011, 2014a,b) as he integrates poststructural work with other, more
structural approaches. What follows are some examples of how poststructural thinking
may be influencing a family therapy approach specifically from a narrative metaphor.

THE ABSENT BUT IMPLICIT

Freedman (2012) demonstrates how she attends to what is “absent but implicit” in the fol-
lowing example. She speaks of meeting with Rhonda and Franklin, a heterosexual couple
who were in conflict about raising their children. Franklin worked as a corporate executive,
while Rhonda stayed at home with the children; however, he had specifications for how she
should manage them and became quite critical when she didn’t measure up to his ideas.
When Jill asked him about what he thought might be his wife’s experience, Franklin replied:
I know that Rhonda should be able to make her own decisions about how she interacts
with the kids. I’m just so disappointed about this stage of life. I’m tired and I don’t like
myself much. I’m disappointed in myself and in life.
Jill is attending to what is on the “other side” of disappointment. She says: “I wonder
about this disappointment. Would you say it is a way of questioning the shape your life
has taken or would you describe it a different way?”
When Franklin responds with: I think questioning would be better than what I’m doing.
I started out questioning it. But now, I’m just being mean about my disappointment.
Jill responds: When you were questioning it, what exactly were you questioning?
This process leads to Franklin’s talking about working so hard, never being at home, so
that Jill then can ask if he had a vision of something else.
Franklin: Yeah. A vision of what life could be like (p. 8).
Jill explores that vision with Franklin and Rhonda, and together they reach what is
important to them and what they value. As therapy progressed, both Franklin and
Rhonda consider the possibilities of Franklin leaving a high-paying job, their family living
more simply, and having more family time. As is often the case, however, they run up
against the context in which they had chosen to live: one with children in private school,
an expensive house to maintain, a community that supported higher income families.
What is often a conundrum for therapists who think in terms of discourse is how to
bring the discourse into the room; the answer, of course, is to follow the client and have
the conversation when it “fits” for them. As Jill comments: “I want to underline that in my
experience people are much more interested in having a deconstructing conversation and
really thinking about the context that supports problems when they’ve experienced social
pressures pulling them away from something they want. They experience these conversa-
tions as relevant and experience-near; rather than theoretical” (2012, p. 9).
What ensued in a continuing discussion with the couple was an understanding that the
problem was not disappointment and meanness, but pressure and expectations, and an
understanding of gender arrangements and their effects. Over several weeks, Rhonda and
Franklin decided to stay living right where they were, but to send their children to the
town’s excellent public schools. Franklin also started working to make his lifelong dream
of being a high school teacher come true, while Rhonda was thinking about work outside
the home that might be fulfilling and take some of the financial pressure off of Franklin.
They were determined to make more nuanced decisions in their commitment to “show
their children a different version of family life” (p. 9).

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What this example demonstrates is how the therapist, practicing from a poststructural
perspective, can “double-listen,” attending both to what is present and problem-focused
and to what is on the “other side,” what is “absent but implicit.”

MULTIPLE IDENTITIES, GENDER, AND POWER

My work (Dickerson, 2007, 2010, 2013) attends to many of the same variables, practic-
ing from a similar perspective, utilizing the poststructural position/belief in multiple iden-
tities or multiple versions of self. This allows me, as the therapist, to attend to many
possibilities as clients find themselves captured by one version, usually a negative, prob-
lematic one. For example, here is the following in a consultation with a student:

Student I’m working with a 17-year-old adolescent whose father is in prison; the
father told his social worker that he wanted to be released and go home so
that he could help his son “not follow in his footsteps.”
Consultant I would be curious about what footsteps he wouldn’t want his son to follow
and what footsteps he would prefer his son to follow. Or with the son, what
footsteps of his father’s would he like to follow? Which ones not?
The “noticing” here does not “totalize” the father as loser, prisoner, druggie, and so on,
and is one of understanding there are other ways this father might value and that his son
might also value. It is similar to the “absent but implicit,” but in this case focuses on multi-
ple versions of identity. Who else is this father? And how can he make that visible and
available to his son? And how else does his son know him rather than the man who is in
prison?
A similar example occurs in my work with a young couple in their early 30s and
their infant child. The wife/mother is enveloped by her identity as a new mother,
and rightly so—how difficult is it to think of oneself in any other way when one has
a 9-month-old baby? And yet, she would like to access other possible identities: can
I be a teacher, a friend of friends, a sexual partner, a giver of gifts—not just a
provider of nurturance and sustenance. The husband/father in his youth is searching
for what men are trained to find: meaningful work—what do I want to do, rather
than how many ways can I be.

Some examples of conversations come to mind:

When the baby was perhaps a month old
Dad She (mom) at least gets to get out a bit more; she’s going to a ‘Mom’s group.’
Therapist Do you go to a Dad’s group?
Dad They don’t have one.
Therapist Would you ever think of starting one?
In this conversation, I am noticing the dominant discourses about moms and dads; who is
the primary caregiver? Who can leave the context? Who needs support? How do dads find
a way to balance their work and their relationships?
When the baby was 9-months-old,

Dad I hate it when the guys I play golf with ask me what I do. (He is in the
process of deciding whether or not he wants to pursue more schooling and is
currently working part-time.)
Therapist Why don’t you tell them you’re a husband and a father?

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Dad Well, I am, but they want to know what I do, so I come up with variations of
what I’ve done in the past and what I want my future to be. But I guess I do
tell them about my daughter.
The dominant discourse about work and men captures Dad in a way that makes work a
priority and family secondary, although he does notice that he would prefer to have both
be important in his life.

In a recent interview:
Therapist We’ve talked previously about how you do everything 150%; have you
figured out how to be a 150% dad?
Dad I haven’t figured out what it means to be a 150% dad; when Amy (his
daughter) was first born, it was all about Mom, and I didn’t know how to be a
Dad, even though it was really important to me. Recently Lisa (his wife)
criticized me for not being available to put Amy to bed. I thought, “Well she
does such a great job, why should I do it.” But I realize I need to learn how.
Therapist How were you able to hear her—through the criticism?
Dad We’re trading a little bit back; before it seemed like Amy just wanted her
Mom, and I didn’t know what to do. I had assumed it was Lisa’s role to put
Amy to bed, but the other night we did it together, so I can do it by myself in
the future. I do more of being with Amy; Lisa gets to more go do her own
thing.
The questions for this couple were in the interest of following their experience, while
at the same time “deconstructing” it (i.e., questioning what is being taken for granted as
gendered ways of being in this particular family). The variations from family to family are
in the context of other storied events (e.g., race, age, class), all of which are always present
and for which I needed to be accountable.

WITNESSING AND HOPE

Kaethe Weingarten began to write about and extend her thinking regarding “witness-
ing” with her article “Witnessing, Wonder, and Hope” (2000) followed by her 2003 book
Common Shock—a watershed work. This revolutionary volume provides a template for
understanding that can assist all those who find themselves in a helping profession. The
four “witness positions” are reprised in subsequent articles (Weingarten 2010, 2012,
2013), with Weingarten commenting that “. . .the only relief to the clinician and benefit
to the client comes from moving into the aware and empowered position . . . they (as
witnesses) manifest doing reasonable hope” (p. 12).
From her 2010 article on reasonable hope, Weingarten tells us: “reasonable hope” is
“relational,” and is a “practice”; within its embrace the “future is open, uncertain, and
influenceable,” seeks “goals and pathways,” and accommodates “doubt, contradictions,
and despair.” One clinical example refers to “cocreating conversational hope spaces” (pp.
14–15):

Client I miss my mother and miss that way (a relationship that was like a
friendship)
Weingarten How were you with your mother?
Client I was loving.
Weingarten Did you get separated from that way of being when she died?

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Client Yes
Weingarten What else did you get separated from?
Client Trust.
Weingarten What do you mean?
Client I’m not trustworthy.
Weingarten Are those things that you want to get back into your life? Do you prefer to be
loving and trustworthy?
Client I do.
Weingarten’s close following of her client’s experience and her positioning on the possibil-
ity of reasonable hope allows for the cocreating of transformative experiences. Her subse-
quent articles on chronic sorrow and working with couples with chronic illness (2012,
2013) are yet another adaptation of poststructural thinking in life-giving ways.
I hope the above examples from these different clinicians show the variability that nar-
rative/poststructural clinical work can take. Also, by being inside the work, one can see
the close attention to meaning and the close following of the client’s experience.

Madsen’s Collaborative Helping Maps

Occasionally there comes along a template for understanding and working that is “spot
on” in its contemporary relevance, its response to the needs of those who are underserved,
and its importance to the frontline workers who are willing to benefit from it. This is the
work of Bill Madsen. He operates from a poststructural umbrella that permeates and satu-
rates how he thinks about therapeutic work, and which addresses those persons who
might most need the help—those in poverty, captured by social systems and legal difficul-
ties, and less likely to seek traditional therapeutic services. Even more, his template
assists those workers who are less apt to avail themselves of more traditional psychother-
apy/family therapy educational systems, but who are quite adept at how they think about
and work with the populations they serve (see Madsen, 2014b, this issue).
From his poststructural understanding, he integrates practices from narrative therapy,
solution-focused therapy, appreciative inquiry, motivational interviewing, and the signs of
safety approach (see Madsen, 2009) in his attention to family-centered services and the
workers involved. His model has expanded from his first book—Collaborative Therapy
with Multi-Stressed Families, originally published in 1999 with a 2nd edition in 2007. He
now calls his template Collaborative Helping Maps (2011) and has written about its appli-
cation not only with clients but also in support of professional development (2014a).
Madsen’s depiction of how service is provided from the outside in includes “helping
practices,” “conceptual maps,” and a “relational stance.” He is able to make this process
visible to the frontline worker in thoughtful ideas and practices that make sense to them.
In his article in this issue (Madsen, 2014b), he explicates how postmodern/poststructural
ideas inform family-centered practices in an elegant manner, taking poststructural con-
cepts into explicit practical detail. Madsen’s writing shows that he believes families them-
selves know what is best for them, and that frontline workers have been good at eliciting
that knowledge.
The possibilities of expansion and extension of Madsen’s model are multiple. As Lebow
(2014) comments: “It extends the vision of family therapy beyond the office and more nar-
row concepts of the office structure to a family-centered vision that can be applied parsi-
moniously in a broad range of service contexts” (p. 1). Family-centered services include a
variety of approaches, focused on partnerships between service providers and families,

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and that are accountable to families. I believe this template is at the cutting edge of family
therapy, and recommend that others integrate this model in whatever context they might
work.

Affecting the Larger Family Therapy Field

The postmodern/poststructural influence has, of course, left its mark. In a world
explored by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, where even the overthrow of
governments has depended on social media, it is evident that meaning is multiple and var-
ious. A clear and current example is the documentary “The Square,” which is about the
protests in Egypt centered in Tahrir Square. Friedman’s (2014) comments are telling: “We
can be and must be ‘authors of our own story.’ It has long been said, added Amer (the film’s
producer) that ‘history is written by the victors. Not anymore.’ Now versions can come
from anywhere and anyone. Power is shifting ‘from the pyramid to the square’—from
strongmen to strong people—‘and that is a big shift.’”
We do seem to live in a poststructural world, where power is increasingly questioned,
where interpretations abound and no one has a corner on the truth. But has a poststruc-
tural influence been relegated to the margins, where Michael White often said narrative
thinking resides? Is the self-described poststructural approach only noticeable with those
who argue straightforwardly that they do poststructural work, such as for example, Freed-
man (2012), Dickerson (2010, 2013), and Weingarten (2010, 2012, 2013), along with the
number of persons internationally, including Madigan (2011) and Epston (2008, 2009)?
The Dulwich Centre, Michael White’s original home, has numerous programs, an intense
following, and is currently creating a Master’s program in narrative therapy.
Have postmodern/poststructural words been pasted on to other approaches, workshops,
classes, or marriage and family therapy programs? The word “postmodern” is used fairly
frequently, in my experience, in describing some activities, but how does it translate? For
example, in a recent conversation with a doctoral student (J. White, personal communica-
tion, 2014) who is writing her dissertation on postmodernism and critical theory, she asks
how I include issues of gender, race, class, age, and sexuality in therapy. I respond by com-
menting that in a poststructural approach, these issues are always there. One simply
notices opportunities to “trouble” them—a poststructural term for deconstructing what
are “settled certainties” (White, 1995).
I wonder if Madsen’s “collaborative helping maps” is a more direct indication of a shift?
Poststructural thinking is integral to his template, and the practices follow his politicized
approach (see Madsen, 2014b, this issue). From a position of respect and curiosity, key to
any good therapy, he focuses on collaboration, appreciation, accountability, partnership,
community, and alliance building. I suspect this poststructural shift has infiltrated other
ways that family therapists think and work. I believe that contemporary family practition-
ers no longer hold normalized views of the couple, the family, nor of theoretical
approaches. We do not seem to be relying on our ideas of what works and what doesn’t as
truth. I imagine we are leaning more toward the view that our clients are experts in their
own lives.
Reviewing the last chapter of Minuchin’s most recent work, The Craft of Family Ther-
apy (Minuchin, Reiter, & Borda, 2014), it is gratifying that he confirms the premise of this
paper: that postmodern/poststructural thinking has directly influenced family therapy.
His comparison of narrative and structural perspectives substantiates the claim I make
here that a poststructural view has changed how family therapists think.
Has it also changed how family therapists practice? We’ve looked at how some post-
structuralists might work; would it appear somewhat similar in a system therapist’s
office? Collaboration, curiosity, respect, and accountability are practices that are central

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to systems thinking and work; and most family therapists might agree that conceptualiza-
tions, such as “triangles,” “patterns,” and “intergenerational transmission,” exist as useful
constructions. It is likely that poststructuralism has informed systems therapists in their
practice modalities. However, it would take a larger study to explore that possibility, one
that is beyond the scope of this paper.
From a poststructural and a social constructionist perspective, meaning resides in
our use of language. Words carry certain understandings that then become acceptable
to larger societal groups. Both Michael White and Harlene Anderson, from somewhat
different theoretical positions, were very careful that the language they used conveyed
their poststructural understandings. Michael White, for example, preferred to use the
words “talents and skills” rather than the more structural word, “strengths,” which
assumes an inherent characteristic. Likewise, Michael’s emphasis on discourse politi-
cized his use of language; he was careful to affirm that his position was not merely a
linguistic one, but situated in an appreciation of power relationships (White, 2007,
2011; White & Epston, 1990). Harlene Anderson described her early work as a “not-
knowing” approach, not assuming that she knew what clients meant, but constantly
questioning their meaning. Her more recent work emphasizes relationships and dialog
(Anderson, 2012a).
I wonder if too often we, as family therapists, continue to use language that reflects a
structural understanding. Often language lags behind subtle shifts in practice, so we use
the words available to us to describe practices that may look very different in the therapy
room. For example, I recently edited a paper by a student, who was attempting to
describe her work from a narrative/poststructural perspective. I was carefully editing
words that came from more structural language, nuanced differences, carrying different
meanings. I changed “pointed out” to “wondered about this with her” and “uncovering” to
“exploring.” Instead of “identify the problem” I suggested the phrase “co-construct the
problem with the client,” and rather than “provide possibilities,” I opted for “open possi-
bilities.”
Although these might seem like minor changes, the words do carry different meanings.
I would hope that family therapists’ work could be described as “wondering,” “exploring,”
“co-constructing,” and “opening,” and that articulating such practices from a poststructur-
al understanding would begin to happen. It is likely that these therapists currently mainly
have available to them the usual and customary words to depict what they do. As can
sometimes occur, however, understanding from a poststructural position can change what
one does and how one describes it.
It is likewise important that structural constructions would not direct attention away
from the politics of relationships. Guilfoyle (2003, 2011), from a poststructural position,
addresses how therapists may or may not make the dynamics of power visible in therapeu-
tic practice. He says: “If we believe . . . that we are at all times inescapably immersed in
power relations and dynamics . . . how do we facilitate clients’ participation as social
beings within social power relations?” (2011, p. 14).
A poststructural understanding allows therapists to attend to Michael White’s under-
standing of Foucault’s (1980) concept of the technology of modern power. From early on in
his writing and thinking, Michael (White, 1997, 2007, 2011; White & Epston, 1990)
asserted the importance of acknowledging how modern power enlists persons in construct-
ing their lives according to normalizing judgments. We would emphasize the importance
of a poststructural therapy attending to how modern power operates in the lives of our cli-
ents and in our own lives. One small way we can undermine some of the insidious effects
of modern power is by noticing our own positions of power and situating our questions in
our own knowledge, thus beginning to assist clients in choosing to live in ways that better
suit them.

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CONCLUSION
In a biography about the photographer Dorothea Lange, Gordon (2009) writes:
The responsibility she felt was not to provide solutions to problems, however; she told her
students that documentary photographs should ask questions, not provide answers. It is the
questioning aspect of Lange’s photographs that remains animated today. Many documentary
photographs denounce injustice and suffering. The very best are also wondering. They suggest
that the photographer does not understand everything going on in them. There remains a mys-
tery, and this may be their most respectful and challenging message.
A poststructural stance is about questioning and wondering; it is not about having
answers, nor understanding everything. It is also a viewpoint that is a protest against
normative ways of thinking, focused on appreciating people, families, and couples as
experts in their own lives, intent on cocreating alternative ways of being and living, and
committed to social justice.
Perhaps the family therapist of the 21st century has a more complex understanding of
families, of context, of multiplicity, and of social justice than ever before. This is probably
an effect of a poststructural stance in a poststructural world. This can only be a good thing
for family therapy.

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