Describes the Milan method of working with families, including a pattern of creative teamwork that separates the therapists' cognitive constructions from the family's belief systems, a style of interviewing that releases information latent in the family, and some novel interventions that facilitate the family's capacity to discover nonsymptomatic…

Addresses clinical and methodological issues in conducting the Marital Systems Study, a research project evaluating the efficacy of systems-oriented conjoint treatment with couples in which one spouse is abusing alcohol. These include standardizing and monitoring the intervention and developing an interactional perspective on the alcohol-related…

Describes five highly structured writing assignments for teaching family therapy trainees to think in systems terms: 1) analysis of a communication task; 2) family assessment report; 3) family treatment plan; 4) analysis of a marital or family therapy interview; and 5) family autobiography. Discusses the overall training context. (Author)