The Association for Family Therapy 2002.

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley

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Journal of Family Therapy (2002) 24: 369384
01634445

At the still point of the turning world: a journey

through the temporal dimensions of a fatherson
conflict
Ellen Katza
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
This paper will examine aspects of the permeability of time, with a view to
exploring our perceptions of ourselves as present-focused distinct individuals. Permeability of time is defined as times fluidity, its ability to move
across boundaries of past, present and future. Fluidity, in this sense, is our
capacity to experience past, present and future simultaneously.
Time will be examined from both psychoanalytic and systemic viewpoints. Issues of time and timelessness, consciousness and memory will be
raised and the usefulness of working from an affective base discussed. The
case cited in the paper is one in which the family was in the stage of having
an adolescent child. Adolescence will therefore be discussed as it relates to
the issue of time. The clinical discussion will be based on an integration of
the two theoretical perspectives as they relate to time and affect. In conclusion I will revisit the question of our perception of ourselves as presentfocused distinct individuals within a family context.

Time: a psychoanalytic and systemic examination

Paradoxical thought, memory, consciousness and time
From a psychoanalytic perspective, the paradoxical concepts of
time/timelessness and consciousness/unconsciousness are
discussed by Hartocollis (1974, 1983), Matte-Blanco (1988), Rayner
and Tuckett (1988), Jordan (1990), Ogden (1992a, 1992b), and
Muir (1995). Inherent tensions exist within these paradoxical
a Senior Clinician, Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, 440 Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario,
M4Y 2H4, Canada.

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Ellen Katz

concepts. They are paradoxical in the sense that they describe a

process in which creation and negation occur simulaneously within
continual movement between the contradictions of time and timelessness, and consciousness and unconsciousness (Ogden, 1992a,
1992b). These processes coexist in a dialectical relationship due to
the workings of the mind. According to Matte-Blanco (1988), the
human mind is divided into five strata that encompass both the
conscious and unconscious mind, and because the human mind
can only consider spaces of three dimensions, time is collapsed.
This occurs because our mind, in grouping likeminded objects and
events together does not take time into account, and hence it is
collapsed. Likeminded objects and events will be classified into the
same set regardless of the time in which they occurred. The mind,
then, due to its ability to perceive maximally in three dimensions, is
often obliged to eliminate the sense of time. Matte-Blanco views the
unconscious tendency to fuse experience as more powerful than
the minds ability to maintain separateness.
A brief look at memory further elucidates the discussion of time.
Tulving (1985), a psychologist, defines memory as the capacity that
permits organisms to benefit from their past experiences. There are
at least three different memory systems procedural, semantic and
episodic arranged in a hierarchy from less to more complex.
Memory systems appear to be oriented separately to the future
(procedural memory), the present (semantic memory) and the past
(episodic memory). Each system possesses a different form of
consciousness. The episodic and procedural systems are pertinent to
this discussion. Procedural memory (future time) possesses anoetic
or non-knowing consciousness. Episodic memory (past time) is autonoetic or self-knowing. Episodic memories are supported by the
procedural memory system, and it is only the latter that can operate
independently of the others. Awareness of time is therefore a function of self-knowledge. Time rests within the self.
Jeffrey Prager (1998), a sociologist and analyst who straddles
both psychoanalysis and systemic thinking, also views memory as
being related to self-consciousness. Self-consciousness, embodied in
episodic memory, is critical to situating oneself temporally but its
location in the later developing memory system renders it vulnerable. Its vulnerability lies, as Tulving argues, in self-knowledge or
autonoetic consciousness being the least necessar y form of
consciousness (Tulving, 1985). It is the sense of time that seems
most fragile and easily lost.
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Communication and time

Etchegoyen and Ahumada (1990) discuss the links between the
psychoanalytic thoughts of Matte-Blanco and the systemic thinking
of Bateson. Batesons work shows the existence of two modes of
communication: analogic and digital. Analogic communication
involves patterns of actions in relationships and is based on classes
of relationships. As such it encompasses the nonverbal, emotional
component of a relationship. Digital communication, in contrast, is
specific, word-based communication in which the external world
may be divided up into specific objects. Etchegoyen and Ahumada
state, Recognition of individuals (including the speaker) as such,
that is, as distinct from the class, requires quite an advanced degree
of digitalization. Batesons systemic thinking supports MatteBlancos psychoanalytic argument: the mind merges distinct experience into sets of similar experiences.
Paul Gibney (1994), a systemic therapist, further develops the
importance of distinguishing between digital and analogic communication. As digital communication pertains to language and signs
it can be negated, whereas analogic communication, the nonverbal
realm, cannot: Simply put, you can tell someone that you did not
mean what you said, but once you have hit them, they remain hit!
Gibney castigates family therapy for relying on digital communication to facilitate the negation of the past. Family therapy views
previous experience as subject to negation if placed in a different
story. Gibney recommends the inclusion of both time and affect in
therapy. He argues that the past, encoded in analogic memories,
cannot be negated. What is needed is an emphasis on the analogic
components of relationships. When clients feel supported in a therapeutic environment, they can experience emotions that may not
have been available to them in previous stressful situations. Such
experience allows affect to become encoded as episodic memory as
opposed to an on-going emotional organising principle in the
clients life.
In discussing time the systemic literature reveals a focus on larger
systems, encompassing sociocultural time issues. Such issues pertain
to the increased use of technology and its impact on family time.
Mention is made of paradoxical concepts of subjective and objective
time (Ritterman, 1995), and mind and body time (Ventura, 1995).
However, there is little examination of the incongruity of
time/timelessness. Boscolo and Bertrando (1993), Larner (1998)
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and Madigan (1997) adopt constructivist positions in their examination of time. Here, time is a construction of an external reality
not an acquisition of such a reality. Time is seen as a representation
of relationships rather than an external reality.
Boscolo and Bertrando (1993) and Larner (1998) discuss the self
as an amalgamation of past, present and future experience and
interaction. The individual exists within a whole range of different
temporal horizons, though he or she may be able to give conscious
attention to only one of them at a time. Prager (1998) echoes this
in saying that the self is driven by internal pressures to remember
the past in the idiosyncratic ways that are required for one to situate oneself temporally in a past, a present and a future. The potential is there for the same blurring of boundaries discussed in the
psychoanalytic literature. Because the individual exists simultaneously in different temporal horizons, the past is continually redefined by present events and relationships. The past, therefore, is
constantly re-created in the present and can never be re-created as
it actually was. This implies that the past may be modified through
a different re-creation in the present.
Larners emphasis is different in his examination of therapeutic
change as it relates to time. His discussion of time from a constructivist perspective touches on time as a unity. He mentions the past
not as lost in time but as something we can never leave behind,
and he agrees with Gibney in describing therapeutic time as having
a timeless quality. However, he makes no mention of affect in time
in his discussion.
Pragers (1998) view that what is remembered from the past is
designed to serve the selfs affective needs underscores Gibneys
emphasis on the primacy of affect. Prager sees affect as structuring
memory. His view is that feeling states and bodily desires inherited
from the past but prevailing in the present are able to rewrite the
past in search of the present. Working from an affective base could
be useful in working through these affective memories in order to
integrate them better into ones overall life narrative or episodic
memory.
Within the more recent family therapy literature a debate has
arisen about the lack of discussion of affect and the use of
emotion in clinical work. Flaskas (1989, 1990, 1993) has written
extensively in this area and highlights the recent shift in family
therapy to a greater acceptance of analytic ideas in general and
the use of affect in particular. The Journal of Systemic Therapies
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(1998) devoted a whole issue to the use of emotion in couples and

family therapy. The editorial written by Susan Johnson (1998)
acknowledged that systemic therapies have been accused of
neglecting the emotional sphere. In addition, King (1998),
McFadyen (1997), Turnell and Lipchik (1999) and Pocock (1997)
have stated similar views, noting an absence of a discussion of
affect. Mellor et al. (2000) note that information gained through
the observation of non-verbal patterns has been ignored and a
whole body of knowledge neglected. These authors all support a
shift to a greater use of affect in family therapy, and King (1998)
suggests concrete ways of integrating affect and emotion in solution-focused therapy. In fact, Mellor et al. (2000) caution against
moving too far away from the real core of human life, the feeling
domain. Johnsons editorial (1998) stated that the aim of this
edition of the Journal of Systemic Therapies devoted to the issue of
emotion in clinical work was to integrate emotion into systemic
thought and practice, adding a new and vital piece to the systemic
picture.
Systemic and psychoanalytic views of time are complementary
and facilitate a richer understanding of the concept of time. The
lack of consideration from a systemic perspective fosters a greater
reliance on the psychoanalytic perspective which is rich in this
area. Etchegoyen and Ahumada, and Gibney discuss communication and memory in a way that illuminates the mechanisms used by
the mind in merging distinct experiences into sets of similar experience as discussed by Bateson and Matte-Blanco. Gibney and
Matte-Blanco demonstrate the power that procedural memory and
analogic communication have to stimulate the mind to organize
experience into sets of events. Prager discusses affect as an organizing principle of time as it is remembered. Flaskas, King, Turnell
and Lipchik, Pocock, McFadyen and Mellor, Storrer and Firth all
support the use of affect in clinical work. The emphasis is on the
minds need to re-create the same affective experience until it is
able to remember and process those emotions in order to integrate
the affective component of the experience into episodic memory
where it may exert less power over the individual. Larners (2000)
view is that repetition over time is of interest both in psychoanalysis and family therapy. The idea of repetition finds expression in
terms of unconscious patterns of individual psychology, systemic
sequences in families and in the coherent recounting of life experiences as narrative.
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Adolescence as it relates to time

Adolescence has been defined as the transitional period between
puberty and adulthood in human development extending mainly
over the teen years and terminating legally when the age of majority is reached (Stein, 1973).
Blos (1962,1967) and Lidz (1983), writing about adolescence
from a psychodynamic perspective, agree on the intrapsychic states
underlying individuation. Lidz (1983) says that adolescence is the
proper time to be both dependent and independent. He mentions
the paradoxical situation of preparing for self-sufficiency while gaining support, protection and guidance from parents. Blos (1967) says,
The adolescent process constitutes, in essence, a dialectical tension
between primitivization and differentiation, between regressive and
progressive positions, each drawing its impetus from the other, as
well as each rendering the other workable and feasible. Paradox
and dialectical tension has been further explored in a discussion of
the permeability of time. Nowhere is the dialectical tension between
separateness (autonomy) and connectedness more poignantly experienced than in the adolescents individuation.
Carter and McGoldrick (1989) have written about families at
times of change, and Preto (1989) has written about adolescence,
both from a systemic viewpoint. They discuss the flow of anxiety in
a family as being both vertical (a timeline that includes successive
generations), and horizontal (a timeline that encompasses one
generation as it moves forward through time). It is the degree of
adaptive response to the anxiety engendered by the stress on the
vertical and horizontal axes at the points where they converge that
is the key determinant of how well the family will manage its transitions through life. Preto further defines the convergence of the
vertical and horizontal axes. The axes intersect when (on the vertical axis) an unresolved conflict between parents and grandparents
is reactivated as the adolescent (on the horizontal axis) is attempting to move beyond the exclusive influence of his family. This
discussion raises the theoretical issue of time, as discussed above.
Understanding the intervening with the M. family
Assessment
The M. family consists of a 17-year-old son Fred, and parents Sandra
and Kurt. Before the referral, the family had made a number of
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attempts to improve family relationships. Parent counselling had

uncovered difficulties in the fatherson relationship. Attempts to
ameliorate the difficulties were unsuccessful. Although Kurt, the
father, could make a shift on an intellectual level, it was much more
difficult for him to do this on an emotional level. Sandra, Kurt and
Fred had all been involved in individual therapy. While both
parents had had rewarding experiences, Fred was found to be
unsuited to individual psychotherapy by the therapist who had seen
him for an assessment. Sandra and Kurt then contacted the outpatient department of the childrens mental health centre in their
area in order to initiate family therapy. In their search for professional help for their son, they realized that they had never tried
family therapy. They came to the present assessment wanting to
know whether family therapy was suited to their situation and
whether it could assist them in reducing tensions and distance in
the family, and increasing their abilities to positively relate to each
other, fostering closer relationships among them.
The presenting problem was seen from two perspectives. Fred
saw the problem as dating back to the beginning of high school
when school work was more difficult and he became mixed up with
a peer group involved in drugs and theft. He missed class regularly
and failed a number of courses. Although the family maintained
that Fred had a learning disorder, contact with psychoeducational
staff at his school called this into question. Kurts view of the situation was that it dated back to Freds childhood. Fred had always got
into conflicts around rules. Kurt saw his son as an obstinate person,
responsible for the conflict. Fatherson struggles as a result of
Kurts attempts to establish rules had been mediated by Sandra.
Sandras view was that her husbands expectations of Fred were
unrealistic based on his own (Kurt) past. Sandra saw Kurt as needing to make some changes in his interactions with Fred. Freds
development was reported as delayed by his parents. They spoke of
him as always slow and somewhat obstinate. He had lied frequently
for self-aggrandizing purposes. At age 15 he began breaking rules,
fighting and taking drugs. He became involved in car thefts and
bicycle stealing. Fred ran away for a few nights, though he let his
parents know his whereabouts.
Family history revealed difficult childhoods for the two
parents. Kurt came from a working-class background. He experienced his own father as rejecting him, as he thought that Kurt
would not be successful in life. Kurt described himself as having
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Ellen Katz

learning difficulties. He left home with relief as his parents argued

frequently. He obtained a Ph.D. in one of the social sciences with
great determination, after having dropped out of high school. Kurt
had recently completed his first book. He had a brother ten years
younger with whom he had had no recent contact.
Sandras father died when she was 15. Her mother had a major
mental illness and Sandra became the caretaker of her two siblings,
an older sister and a younger brother. She therefore found it difficult to leave home and was surprised at how attached she was to her
mother. Sandra acquired a Masters Degree in education and
contemplated going back for a Ph.D. but decided against it. Both
Sandra and Kurt work in education; Kurt as a university professor,
and Sandra as a high school teacher.
Observing family functioning yielded the following pattern. Kurt
(father) attacked Fred (son) for disobeying family rules, using
demeaning language. Sandra (mother) rose to Freds defence with
the stated goal that Kurt modify his position. Kurt did so but then
attacked Sandra for her defence of Fred. Sandra responded by
abandoning Fred and siding with Kurt. Kurt may have modified his
initial position but he felt put out and blamed by the rest of the
family. Fred was left wanting to improve his relationship with his
father but feeling shut out.
Therapy
The family was eager for therapy. They presented as wanting to
discuss the blocks between them, their goal being closer emotional
relationships. Kurt initiated and found the use of metaphors helpful and in particular favoured the use of a wall between himself
and Sandra, and a block between himself and Fred. Kurt expressly
described time as a factor in the familys difficulties. He found
discussing the archaeology of the block useful, but was nervous
about being seen as the problem. He said that the family viewed
him as the problem because he exploded in anger during arguments with his son. Kurt felt that Fred was the problem. Kurt had
had such a traumatic childhood that he had worked hard at becoming the kind of father he never had, and he felt that he had
succeeded in this task. Kurt began to acknowledge the potential
mutuality of the problem when I introduced another way of
communicating, standing in each others shoes. This was used to
facilitate fatherson communication. Kurt felt that this would aid in
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Fred hearing his voice. While this was successful, it also facilitated
Kurt hearing his son. Kurt began to modify his side of the difficulty,
referring to this process as excavating the block.
My presence as therapist seemed important to this family. Fred
developed the metaphor tuning you in which meant that the
family would tune me in as they would a television channel to see
what I would say. Numerous references were made to having done
that in between sessions. They would then tell me what I would say.
They were always correct in that they knew exactly what I would
have said, and would acknowledge when they could have interpreted family events differently.
Fred and Kurt each came to a crucial point in therapy. For Fred
this occurred early. I defended Fred in a family session because his
fathers expectations of Fred appeared unreasonable. I told Kurt
that his own behaviour had been unreasonable. The family said I
had put Kurt in the hot seat. In the next session the family said
that Fred had raised this for discussion in between sessions, feeling
his father had been treated unfairly. He then went on to gradually
become less unnecessarily provocative with his father but he was
able to continue to state his view when it differed from that of this
father.
In his use of time to conceptualize family problems, Kurts significant moment in therapy was more gradual, comprising many small
moments. The first of the small moments in Kurts shifts began
when, in one session, Kurt said with great feeling, The past is very
much alive for me. He went on to describe the degradation he experienced in his family of origin. Kurt detailed his fathers constant
demeaning comments to him. His father did not expect him to
succeed in life and when Kurt was successful, his father did not
respond to him. Kurts mother sided with his father, but was less
overtly cruel to Kurt. Kurt protected his brother Jeff from his
parents anger. He cited an example of assisting his brother in
making excuses for an exam he missed. He wanted his brother as an
ally, but Jeff was never an ally for Kurt and, when they were adults,
resented Kurts university degrees. Kurt gave up the attempt to forge
a relationship with his brother, severing all contact with him. It was
possible to sense Kurts return to the affective past in this discussion,
as in other discussions of the past. When he finished what he wanted
to say, it was as if he had returned from another world.
Another of the small moments assisting Kurts shifts occurred in
another session. Kurt and Fred were squabbling. Sandra
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commented that this did not seem to be a parentchild conflict as

she experienced it as a sibling conflict. The temporal dimension of
the problem was present when I asked who the siblings were. Kurt
acknowledged that he was not really speaking to Fred in this conversation but to his brother, and they were competing for his mothers
(in this case Sandra) attention. He explained that there were other
times when he and Fred spoke when he felt he was really talking
to his father. Kurt acknowledged that his past was still alive in his
relationship with his son. I attempted to explore the affective experience evoked in these present confrontations with the past. I asked
Kurt if his thinking was that his father was still alive for him. Kurt
had difficulty engaging in this exploration. I will discuss Kurts difficulty further in the next section.
A similar difficulty emerged early in treatment when I proposed,
in a fatherson session, the use of family sculpture. Sculpting is a
technique used to prompt affective experience and its exploration
(McWhinney and Finlayson, 1974; Jefferson, 1978). It can be used
when affect seems to be a difficult area for the family. Father and
son had great difficulty in engaging in this affective experience.
They were accustomed to using words and had difficulty engaging
in a technique that brought the affect alive. It could be that such a
technique may have been too threatening for them. Unfortunately
their discomfort in working directly with the affect evoked in the
session limited the potential for addressing the familys difficulties.
Again I will discuss this in greater detail in the next section.
Towards the end of therapy, Kurt and Fred seemed to be connecting in a more positive way. Marital tension, which initially seemed
high, then subsided after a number of couple sessions. Sandra and
Kurt used these sessions to explore and come to terms with their
differences. As fatherson tension was reduced, marital tension
once again began to rise. The case was transferred to another clinician when my time at the agency ended. As was later reported to me
by my colleague who continued the work, there were no significant
shifts in the family and they made a decision to end the therapy.
Integrating theory as a base for understanding intervention
Theories of time provide a rich and complex understanding of this
familys temporal perspective. As a central figure in this family, one
could argue that Kurt could be located at the still point of the
turning world. He is the pivotal point between an unresolved past
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relationship and a present relationship which has the potential of

duplicating the one in the past. Kurt had a grasp of the differing
temporal components of the familys dilemma. This was gained
through extensive individual therapy, parent counselling and feedback he received about the course of Freds individual therapy.
Kurts understanding was essentially a cognitive-behavioural understanding and was one of the reasons the affective work was unsuccessful. He could speak eloquently about the issues but was difficult
to engage affectively. He could affectively experience his childhood
anger at having been negated by his father but was less able to experience other emotions. He was also unable to integrate the differing
temporal experiences: that of his family of origin and that of his
family of marriage. We hypothesize this as occurring due to the way
Kurts memory and affect systems appeared to operate.
Kurts memory system seemed procedurally (future) dominated.
His automatic procedurally dominated relational functioning was
rife with the affective and sensorimotor experiences of traumatic
childhood negation by his father. To put it another way, the future
was dominated by the past. His episodic (past) memory system
stored vast numbers of these events. Episodic (past) memories were
experienced as so traumatic for Kurt that he was unable to affectively experience the present moment as it occurred. (It seemed
that surviving these re-evoked past traumatic experiences was most
important to Kurt in the present.) What may have occurred is that
the affective elements of these experiences were suppressed thereby
leaving a cognitive awareness as a cover. Removing the cognitive
defence would bare the frightening affective experience and Kurt
may have tried to prevent this. However, because he was not able to
integrate procedural and episodic memories, these affective experiences continued to organize his experience. Consciously Kurt had
cognitively understood his past and was determined to overcome it,
but because he had not affectively experienced it, it was unconsciously still operative. Although ostensibly living in the present,
Kurt was also living in the past, experiencing simultaneously time
and timelessness. His unconscious anxiety to resolve a traumatic
past continued to create the same conditions. Kurt transformed
Fred into a cast of characters from his past, blurring present distinctions between the two of them. Fred could be himself as a child, his
father as a child, or his brother as a child. This had continued as
Kurt was unable to experience his past affectively. His wife and son
could have been organized in Kurts unconscious in a set including
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family past and present. Kurt constructed bigger blocks between

himself and his son and bigger walls between himself and his wife.
Yet, as in the transformation of Fred into other family members,
Kurt had also destroyed any distinctions between his wife and son
and himself and became fused with them in the present. Though
they could not process the affect evoked, communication among
them was primarily analogic in the importance of emotions, and
lacked the digital component of separateness.
This situation was intensified as Fred entered late adolescence. At
a time when he should have been leaving the family, he was unable
to do so. Increased tension on the familys horizontal axis of time
reactivated past vertical time axis conflicts. Kurt did not want to let
him go until he had resolved his own past relationships. Because he
was not able to do this, Kurt would unconsciously not allow his son
to psychologically leave.
A variety of techniques, grounded affectively, proved to be helpful to this family in treatment. The use of metaphors, introduced by
the family, pointed to Kurts unconscious need to access his procedural memory. Metaphors, such as wall, block, standing in each
others shoes and tuning me in all evoked affective and sensorimotor experience in a manner different from that of ordinary
conversation. Sculpting also attempted to evoke such experience,
albeit less successfully. Perhaps delaying this method until later in
treatment, when the family was more comfortable on an affective
level, would have increased its success.
Upon termination, I remained in the position of having been
unable to facilitate an affective encounter between Kurt and his
past. Family conditions had improved in a greater cognitive understanding for Sandra, Kurt and Fred of general family tensions, of
what triggered escalations of tensions and how to reduce those
tensions when they occurred. However, a lasting improvement
would be more likely to arise when Kurt could affectively engage
with his past. This would involve encounters with emotions other
than anger, perhaps emotions of fear, sadness and disappointment.
Then procedural and episodic memories could be integrated.
Should Kurts memory be integrated, he would overcome the need
to continually re-create the past in the present and be able to affectively experience his past relationship with his father. He would also
be able to reintegrate this relationship into a reconstructed past.
Kurt could then experience his son for the person he really was, an
adolescent who desired an adult relationship with his father. In
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resolving the past he could truly live in the present and forge an
intact future.
Conclusion: psychoanalytic and systemic time integrated
This paper has focused on understanding a clinical case from the
temporal difficulties explicitly experienced by the family. The psychoanalytic literature focused on time from the viewpoint of the indivisibility or unity of time, paradoxical thinking and its inherent tensions.
The systemic literatures focus was on time as the internalization of
relationships and the self as having the ability to co-exist within different temporal horizons. In this literature, family therapy makes a plea
for the use of affect in working with the experience. The psychological literature demonstrates the primacy of affect in its location in the
procedural memory system, the earliest human memory system.
These complementary bodies of literature are invaluable in understanding the concept of time, both theoretically and clinically as
presented in the case example. All contribute to the need to include
working from an affective base as integral to intervention.
In the course of this paper, I have illustrated the continuous oscillations or dialectics on a continuum in the following processes:
time/timelessness, conscious/unconscious and subject/object. I
have suggested that our perceived hold on a continuous, presentfocused distinct individual is much more tenuous than we think it
to be. I have illustrated the theoretical with a clinical case demonstrating the individuals inextricable place within the family, be it
past, present and/or future. The unconscious mind may be seen to
have a need to continually re-create the past in the present until it
is affectively resolved, if ever, which suggests that the way to attempt
resolution of the past is through work on an affective level. Time is
indeed fluid as the human mind constantly flits among the past,
present and future in an attempt to resolve the passage of time. The
past is never truly laid to rest. It is either more or less of an influence in the present and future.
The two disciplines emphasize different aspects of the concept of
time. In addition, until recently, psychoanalytic and systemic thinking have emphasized different aspects of the therapy process.
Psychoanalysis stressed the need to understand the client.
Understanding the individual was the emphasis. Systemic therapies
placed more emphasis on pattern and therapist role with the family,
as the unit discussed. There seem to have been different opinions
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Ellen Katz

both on the place of paradox and dialectical thinking.

Psychoanalysis and family systems therapies have each encompassed
believers and non-believers. The inherent paradox persisted.
However, some of the recent shifts detailed in this paper have highlighted a greater degree of commonality in these two forms of therapy. This has strengthened and enriched the discussion. In
addition, both disciplines are moving towards a focus of understanding the individual within a family context.
The complementarity of psychoanalytic and systemic perspectives
has been valuable in viewing how the individual lives within the
familial context. Grasping the realities of both the individual inner
world and the familial outer world is critical, for it is only against
the background of the minds private space that the real other
stands out in relief (Benjamin, 1988).
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge my appreciation to the late Roy Muir who
introduced me to the fundamental antinomy of being and who
supported me in seeking out the resulting inherent contradictions.
I also wish to acknowledge my appreciation to Eric King who shepherded the initial writing of this paper, providing guidance and
encouragement whenever I needed it.
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