Rewriting Family Scripts: Improvisation and Systems Change (Guilford Family Therapy)

Families can develop self-destructive routines so predictable that members seem to be following a script each coming in on cue as the plot unfolds. Such scripts can be altered, however, when therapists help clients learn to improvise new patterns of relating. This book presents an innovative approach to doing just that--incorporating into therapy elements of script theory and recent findings in attachment research, including those related to narrative. Developing a new attachment concept, "the secure family base," from which individuals can feel safe enough to explore and improvise new scripts, Byng-Hall shows how insecure relationship patterns can be changed both during and after therapy. Jargon-free and illustrated with detailed clinical case material, this book presents a comprehensive conceptual framework that illuminates the central issues of therapy practice with families, couples, children, and adults.

John Byng-Hall is a Consultant Child and Family Psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic. He has published widely on topics such as family myths, legends, and scripts; attachments within the family; adolescence; and the impact of chronic illness within the family. He has also presented his ideas at international conferences. He was trained at Cambridge University, University College Hospital London, the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospitals, and at the Tavistock Clinic. He is a past Chair of the Institute of Family Therapy, London.

I. From Scripts to Improvisations

1. Secure Enough to Improvise

2. The Nature of Scripts

3. Identification across the Generations

4. Rewriting Family Scripts

5. A Case Example

II. Creating a Secure Family Base

6. Security in the Family

7. Therapy and Supervision as Secure Bases

8. Myths and Legends about Security

9. Resolving Care-Control Conflicts

10. Resolving Distance Conflicts

11. Positive Framing of Parenting Scripts

III. Reediting Scripts in Changing Circumstances

12. Scripts in Formation of a New Family

13. Grieving Scripts

14. Disrupted Scripts: Family Breakup and Disability