"David Pocock has always been one of the most original thinkers in the field of family therapy. This is a book that can refine your thinking and inspire your practice. I warmly recommend it!"

-Peter Rober, Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Institute for Family and Sexuality Studies, Faculty of Medicine, University of Leuven, Belgium.

"This masterful and comprehensive book is a must-read for psychoanalysts, humanistic psychotherapists and systemic therapists interested in expanding their collection of ideas and practices."

-Susan Lord, Ph.D., LCSW Clinical Associate Professor Emerita at the University of New Hampshire, Taos Institute Associate, private practice in York, Maine, USA.

This book uses a critical realist framework to encourage individual therapists to think systemically and family therapists to explore a deeper understanding of the individual in contexts, including the domain of the unconscious. Using brief case vignettes and longer case examples to ensure that complex theory is always grounded in practice, this book deploys multiple perspectives - often novel combinations from quite dissimilar psychotherapy traditions - to create a holistic understanding and provide a richer variety of resources to bring to co-constructed therapeutic encounters. Along the way the book includes a critical examination of the often-unspoken philosophical underpinnings of psychotherapy practices via a range of theoretical and practice considerations. These include theory choice, the role of science, knowing and not-knowing, emotion in the system, power and autonomy, collaboration and change, and sameness and otherness. It will also address clinical topics of triangulation, aggressive out-of-control behaviour, and self-harm, in which all the preceding elements of the book are brought together.

David Pocock is a systemic family therapist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in independent practice in Wiltshire, UK. He is the co-editor, with Carmel Flaskas, of Systems and Psychoanalysis: Contemporary Integrations in Family Therapy, (Karnac, 2009), and a series editor of the Palgrave Texts in Counselling and Psychotherapy series.