Education Update

Fundamentals of Theory and Practice Revisited

Boszormenyi-Nagy and Contextual

Therapy: An Overview
Jean François Le Goff

This paper provides an overview of the work of Ivan

Boszormenyi-Nagy, the originator of Contextual Therapy.
The initial form of Contextual Therapy is surveyed, but
closer attention is paid to more recent developments in
the theory and practice. Several critiques of Contextual
Therapy are introduced. The paper includes a detailed
example of a first session conducted according to
Boszormenyi-Nagy’s principles.

Since 1958, Boszormenyi-Nagy has been a pioneer in the
family therapy movement in the United States. Though his
Contextual Therapy is still unknown in many countries, he
has been an eminent teacher and supervisor for many gen-
erations of family therapists. Many therapists have
acknowledged the essential contribution of Contextual
Therapy. For instance Charles Waldegrave, one member of
the ‘Just Therapy Group’ wrote in warm tribute to
Boszormenyi-Nagy:
His work is absolutely unique, and offers an extraordinary
rich tapestry of ideas to view individuals, family, society at
large, and their inter weaving. More than most writers in
the field, he has liberated family therapy from the tedious
constraints of clinicism, and had the courage to wrestle
creatively with many of the philosophical, ethical and
social justice questions our work raises (Waldegrave, in
Rutter, 1992: 3).
From 1980 to 90, I worked with Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and
organised his yearly two day workshops in Paris, and from
1993 to 1998 we co-taught ‘International Contextual Therapy
Training’ courses with students from twelve countries. These
activities allowed a genuine and broad dialogue between us.
In this paper I seek to pass on some key components of
Contextual Therapy with the risk, of course, of oversimplify-
ing very complex thinking. In this article, it is not possible to
present all of the Contextual framework and I would prefer
to focus on the up-to-date formulations especially give-and-
take and the child’s right to give without disregarding the
earlier notions such as loyalty and legacy. I hope to encourage
readers to apply some of these elements in their therapeutic
practice, whatever their basic orientations.
Who is Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy?
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy was born in 1920 in Budapest. As
a teenager, he decided to study medicine and to become a
psychiatrist to discover ways to understand, help and care
for psychotic patients. During the second world war,
Boszormenyi-Nagy and his brother took a stand against
anti-semitism. They helped many Jews escape Nazi persecu-
tion. They earned a death sentence and hid in Budapest
during Nazi occupation.
In 1947, Boszormenyi-Nagy refused to accept Stalinist
dogma and its constraints on democracy. He emigrated
from Hungary to the USA, and in 1952, worked in
Chicago in biological research in order to establish corre-
lates between clinical symptoms and biochemical anomalies
in schizophrenic patients. Then he worked closely with two
eminent psychoanalysts: Franz Alexander, the founder of
psychosomatic medicine, and Thomas Szasz, a clever critic
of psychiatric oppression.
In 1957, he became the founder director of the
Department of Family Psychiatry at Eastern Pennsylvania
Institute (EPPI) in Philadelphia. This was one of the first
centres for practice, research and training in family therapy.
Jean François Le Goff is a family therapist,
psychiatrist and Head of Mental Health at a
Center near Paris (France). Address for cor-
respondence: Dr Jean François Le Goff, 21
Avenue Marceau, 93130 Noisy-Le-Sec,
France. Email: djflg@free.fr

ANZJFT Volume 22 Number 3 2001 pp. 147–157 147

 Jean François Le Goff
Since 1958, Boszormenyi-Nagy has practised family therapy
for families with psychotic children. This kind of therapy,
integrating systemic thinking, existential philosophy and
object relations theory, was called ‘Intensive Family
Therapy’, and is often ranked as a form of psychoanalytical
family therapy. In Philadelphia his team gathered an impor-
tant group of innovative therapists. Among them were Jim
Framo, Gerald Zuk, Geraldine Spark, David Rubinstein,
Barbara Krasner, Margaret Cotroneo, Leon Robinson, and
Oscar Weiner. Jim Framo and Gerald Zuk have become
important family therapists in their own right. Their per-
sonal paths have diverged from Contextual Therapy.
This team organised early nationwide conferences in
1964 and 1967. In 1965 Ivan-Boszormenyi-Nagy’s first
book with Jim Framo, Intensive Family Therapy, collected
the interventions of many pioneers of family therapy such
Bowen, Wynne, Don Jackson, Whitaker, and famous psy-
chotherapists such Laing and Searles. Today these papers
are still fascinating documents. Boszormenyi-Nagy wrote
two chapters. The first develops a relational theory inspired
by Buber’s notion of dialogue and the second presents a
case study underlining the importance of the parentifica-
tion of child in family relations. These papers prefigured
the evolution of Contextual Therapy.
Mara Selvini and other European therapists had their
first contact with family therapy at EPPI. In 1967,
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Wiener and Zuk organized the first
training program in Europe in Leyden (Netherlands). In
1973, Boszormenyi-Nagy and Geraldine Spark published
Invisible Loyalties. It was a new and significant step towards
Contextual Therapy. In this book, the notion of justice is
central and it took systemic and strategic family therapists
by surprise. Boszormenyi-Nagy and Geraldine Spark intro-
duced many new terms such as ‘family legacy’ and ‘family
loyalty’. Their book describes and illustrates the key con-
cepts of Intergenerational Family Therapy. It examines the
relational system, the dialectic theory of relationships,
loyalty, justice and social dynamics, balance and imbalance
in relationships, and parentification. The approach is
demonstrated in numerous case studies. The last chapter
provides the useful ‘Brief contextual guidelines for the
conduct of intergenerational therapy’.
Many reviews insisted on the book’s difficult style and
unusual content. After twenty years, the review of Wetchler
and Piercy retains the same attitude: ‘Although the obfusca-
tory style of this book makes for difficult reading, its
influence on the field renders it an important text for those
interested in transgenerational family therapy’ (Wetchler &
Piercy, 1990).
On the contrary, Helm Stierlin asserts that Invisible
Loyalties is a major book about family therapy because it
‘goes so much beyond the confines of current family theo-
ries that I am tempted to think of a third paradigm after
psychoanalysis and family therapy’ (Stierlin in Rutter,
1992: 1). In the following years, Boszormenyi-Nagy had
close associations with Barbara Krasner, Margaret
Cotroneo, Judith Grunebaum and David Ulrich. He con-
148 ANZJFT September 2001
tinued his research into relational ethics, while being
involved in the study of the concrete process of caring for
families. After 1978, Boszormenyi-Nagy named his form of
therapy ‘Contextual Family Therapy’ and later ‘Contextual
Therapy’. In his view, Contextual Therapy is not only a
kind of family therapy but offers a paradigm applicable to
all forms of psychotherapy.
After the closing of EPPI, he founded the Institute of
Contextual Growth, in Ambler (Pennsylvania), and became
a Professor of Psychiatry and chief of the Family Therapy
Section at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia.
In 1986, Boszormenyi-Nagy and Krasner published a
new and welcome book entitled Between Give and Take. This
clarified Boszormenyi-Nagy’s theory and practice, and made
it more accessible to family therapists. Boszormenyi and
Krasner introduced the new notions of ‘relational ethics’,
‘entitlement’, ‘destructive entitlement’, and ‘exoneration’, and
they deepened or reframed the earlier concepts of ‘legacy’,
‘loyalty’ and ‘ledger’. The four dimensions of relational
reality are fundamental components of this framework.
Boszormenyi-Nagy has not published any further books;
he now teaches and trains in America and Europe. In
meeting with families and family therapists, he continues to
deepen the Contextual Therapy framework. His core inter-
ests remain in defining and exploring the healing moment in
therapy. Other therapists, including Bernal, Cotroneo,
Grunebaum, Krasner, Hargrave and Ulrich in America and
Van Heusden, Van Eereembeent, Le Goff and Garrigues in
Europe have developed and added their own nuances.
Theoretical Basis
The term ‘context’ was chosen by Boszormenyi-Nagy to
indicate the dynamic interaction of a person with his or her
significant relationships. Each person is born into a
complex and unique network of relationships that consti-
tutes a matrix of motivations, rights and options. The
influence of past generations continues within the present
context and extends into future generations. Mutual roots,
legacy and ethnicity are configurations that contribute to
making each person distinctive, with unique bonds with
others. Integral to these bonds is a need for mutuality and
the trust earned from reciprocity, with concern for others
being at the heart of this balance.
Contextual theory enunciates three main components:
1. The notion of dialogue as the ground of human relations
2. The four dimensions framework. Contextual Therapy
introduces a new ethical dimension: relational ethics
3. Transgenerational solidarity and the transgenerational
mandate are contextual frameworks governing transgen-
erational relationships
Dialogue
The work of Boszormenyi-Nagy has been influenced by
Martin Buber’s existential vision of dialogue. Buber makes
a deep distinction between the ‘I–Thou’ relation and the

‘I–It’ relation. These two attitudes can alternate depending
on the state of the relationship between different persons.
In ‘I–It’ relationships, each person is defined beforehand
and the other is an object and not a subject. These kinds of
relations do not create a genuine meeting between partners
but they are satisfying if they effect their goals, which are
the performance of social functions and the taking of roles
regulated by custom.
Instead, the ‘I–Thou’ relationship is a breakthrough for
mutuality, authenticity and spontaneity. It involves the
other as a partner, and confirmation of the partner as other.
It initiates an encounter between them. The realm created
between two partners encompasses:
… those places, whose meaning is to be found neither in
one of the two partners nor in both together, but only in
their dialogue itself, in this ‘between’ which they live
together’ (Buber, 1965: 75).
Where the ‘I–It’ relationship is monologic, the ‘I–Thou’
relationship is dialogic. In Family Therapy, Boszormenyi-
Nagy regards intergenerational relationships as dialogic in
nature. That is his unique contribution. According to
Boszormenyi-Nagy and Krasner (1986), there are two
major options for genuine dialogue: self-delineation and self-
validation. Success in therapy ultimately depends on
evoking a genuine dialogue between a person and those
who are in close relationships with him/her.
The first option is self-delineation: the self uses other
relationships to define itself. The formation of boundaries
between self and others is an aspect of this. The second
option is self-validation: the validation of self through enti-
tlement earned by offering due care to others. When a
person offers care to another person, he or she earns liberty,
security and merit in the relationship whatever the response
of this other. Self validation is a reciprocal process that can
be depicted as a ‘spiral of merits’. Each partner can earn
self-validation. Another formulation of this dialogic
outcome is constructive entitlement.
For instance, if a depressed woman says: ‘I am the
mother of Elena. I’ve been in conflict with my mother since
my childhood’, she is in a process of self-delineation. But
when she recognises the efforts of her daughter in taking
care of her and when she permits her mother to meet with
her daughter and receive from her grand-daughter, she
earns self-validation. Without a dialogic process with her
daughter and her mother, it is not possible to earn self-vali-
dation and constructive entitlement.
In Contextual Therapy, individuation is basically a
dialectic, relational process. In other words, the self evolves
through relations with others who are also developing and
evolving. The parent–child dialogue (like the dialogue
between man and woman in patriarchal society) is asymmet-
rical. Most of the obligation flows in the direction of parent
to child. If this situation is reversed, the child is ‘parentified’.
In this perspective, autonomy is the capacity to engage in
a fair give and take relationship without increasing distance
and separation from family members. This conception differs
ANZJFT September 2001
Boszormenyi-Nagy and Contextual Therapy: An Overview
from Bowen’s theory of differentiation of self, and other the-
ories of maturation, which emphasise the ability to ‘take a
self position’ within the family. Boszormenyi-Nagy, by con-
trast, agrees with Winnicott’s theory, which insists upon the
‘capacity for concern’ as a factor of maturation and ‘continu-
ity of being’ (Winnicott, 1963).
In the early stages of family therapy, the notion of dia-
logue was rejected by many family therapists who
considered that it was not a circular or systemic concept.
Bowen, Zuk and other family therapists asserted that
notions of ‘triangle’ were more pertinent than the dyadic
conceptions of psychoanalysis. However, ‘dialogue’ is cur-
rently a major concept in field of family therapy. According
to Judith Grunebaum, it is very important for family thera-
pists to make the distinction between the terms ‘dialogue’,
‘conversation’ and ‘discourse’.
… I believe, with Buber, that dialogue exists only in a
particular kind of relationship and conversation. Further
distinction of the meanings of these terms and the explo-
ration of the relations between them can eventually lead
to a synthesis of some key but currently polarized ideas
within our field (Grunebaum, 1989: 197).
The Four Dimensions
Human relations build an intersubjective and complex
reality which is understood in four dimensions. These
dimensions are inter-linked but it is not possible to equate
a component of one with a component of another —
indeed they refer to different realities. For example, loyalty
is neither a part of the superego, nor a ‘family rule’. Yet
each dimension has implications for other dimensions: for
example the loss of a parent is an event that elicits a process
of mourning for each family member in the intra-psychic
dimension, a restructuring of the family system in the sys-
temic dimension and, in the ethical dimension, a new
balance of giving and receiving, resulting from the loss of
opportunity to give to the deceased parent.
Each dimension is also the appropriate place for specific
therapeutic interventions. For instance, transference and
countertransference emerge in the psychological dimension,
while the transactional dimension forms the context for
systemic interventions and changes in family rules and pat-
terns. The ethical dimension is unique to the contextual
approach. Relational reality is not conceptualised from the
vantage point of one person only but rather as a multi-per-
sonal field characterised by multiple perspectives and
multiple ethical claims and obligations.
Dimension 1: Facts. This dimension includes factors such
as genetic input, physical health, basic historical facts, or
events in a person’s life cycle. Facts can be unavoidable or
avoidable but all facts have consequences in the ethical
dimension.
Dimension 2: Individual psychology. Individual psychol-
ogy is the study of the intrapsychic realm. The discoveries
of Freud, Ferenczi, Erik Erickson, Kohut and other psycho-
analysts are located in this dimension.
149
 Jean François Le Goff
Dimension 3: Systems of transactional patterns. This is
the field of patterns of observable behavior and communica-
tion between people. Classical family therapy described
many components of this dimension: rules, power, align-
ments, triangles, feedback, and so on.
Dimension 4: Relational ethics. Relational ethics deals
with the inter-subjective balance of trustworthiness, justice,
loyalty, and entitlement among participants in a relation-
ship. All relations are two sided and involve a balance
between ‘give and take’.
Transgenerational Solidarity and Transgenerational Mandate
When family therapy began, the discovery of repetitive pat-
terns across the generations fascinated many therapists and
family members. The Contextual approach recognises the
factual and systemic aspects of family patterns but includes
in the understanding of these patterns ‘legacy’ or ‘transgener-
ational mandate’. The notion of repetitive pattern implies
seeing a pattern behind apparently unrelated facts, but in the
contextual view the problem of consequences is more impor-
tant, particularly the consequences for unborn generations.
According to contextual therapists, ‘legacy’ is never an
obligation to repeat errors of the past. In other words,
Boszormenyi-Nagy’s view is radically different from Freud’s
notion of the ‘repetition compulsion’.
Legacy is the present generation’s ethical imperative to
sort out how life is beneficial to the posterity’s quality of
survival (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner, 1986: 418).
Some Aspects of Relational Ethics
According to Nagy, the ethics of relationship are difficult to
define. Relational ethics are not ‘moralizing, passing judge-
ment, seeking or sorting of values’:
Inevitably, values have a judgmental or prescriptive, norma-
tive character. Yet the fact that relationships have
consequences for the partners is primarily not in realm of
value or ‘ought’. Consequence, and therefore accountability,
is a fact of reality (Boszormenyi-Nagy, in Rutter, 1992: 1).
Relational ethics emerges to account for consequences and
links between generations.
The only way to define relational ethics is to tie giving
and receiving, to fair claiming and fair acknowledgement
of the other’s giving (Boszormenyi-Nagy, 1995: 34).
Trust is the fundamental property of relationships and can
be depleted or restored, depending on the capacity of
family members to act upon loyalty and indebtedness in
their giving to and taking from one another. Symptoms
may appear or worsen when trustworthiness and caring
within a family break down.
Between ‘Giving and Receiving’
Each relationship can be symbolised by a balance between
entitlement and indebtedness. When I give to another, my
150 ANZJFT September 2001
entitlement increases and so does the debt of the other. Yet
accumulation of debt is not a negative factor, it is the new
source for the giving and earning of entitlement. A spiral of
self-validation develops. Giving has many implications in
life; it can seen as a right: the ‘right to give’.
Equity or fairness pertains the symmetrical or asymmet-
rical aspect of relationships. All relations are asymmetrical
but between parent and child, an asymmetrical relationship
predominates. Parents cannot receive as much as they give.
It is through caring for the child and offering trust and relia-
bility that they earn a self-validation independent of the
child’s actions. ‘Destructive entitlement’ is the ethical state
at the core of stagnant transgenerational relations and is
most often due to the negligence of parents and the impact
of a world unjust to a child. The child’s right to have reliable
and trustful relations is injured; subsequently the child has a
right to reparation that is not acknowledged, and this entails
the victim to claim reparation and equity in another context
that is not connected to the original deficit. He or she risks
being unfair, but has a right. An individual may feel no guilt
or remorse yet still act unjustly. However, earning this
destructive entitlement does not inevitably involve destruc-
tive patterns and the previous experience of trust and
fairness can diminish the impact of destructive entitlement.
Loyalty
The term ‘loyalty’ is one of the early concepts used by
Boszormenyi-Nagy. Loyalty is neither a feeling of loyalty
or disloyalty towards another, as in its conventional
meaning, nor a ‘rule’ of the family system: for
Boszormenyi-Nagy, it is a component of relational ethics.
Loyalty is basically an existential and intergenerational
bond. Every human being has come into existence
through his/her parents and for the parents, their children
are born out of them. These two facts underlie loyalty.
Loyalty can be defined as an attitude of fairness; it
includes reliability, engagement in relationships, giving
and receiving, solidarity and reciprocity. The first formu-
lation in Invisible Loyalties (1973) insisted upon the idea
of indebtedness. The child who receives its existence, care,
skills, knowledge from its parents and from previous gen-
erations is bound to its family by an indestructible tie of
debt even in the event of death, abandonment, separation,
estrangement ... In this sense, parents and family regard
their child’s loyalty more highly than anything else they
have a right to expect from him/her.
From her birth, the child is not passive but gives to his
or her parents. The child’s presence gives the parents the
possibility of self-validation through caring and accepting
their parental responsibilities. This possibility of giving to
his or her parents is very useful for the child in preparation
for receiving. This builds a spiral of mutual self-validation.
Of course the child–parent relationship is asymmetrical,
but for the child, the acknowledgement of parents is a part
of self-validation and continuity of being. When a parent

declines what a child gives to him/her, the child endures an
injustice and earns a destructive entitlement.
Loyalty involves choice. There is a preferring one, a pre-
ferred one and one who is not preferred. Thus loyalty is a
triadic, relational and (inevitably) conflicted matter. The
loyalty conflict is present in all steps of life and it is often a
factor of maturation. For example, each member of new
couple can be caught in a loyalty conflict between his/her
spouse and family of origin.
It is necessary to make a distinction between ‘conflict of
loyalties’ and ‘split loyalty’. In split loyalty it is not possible
for a child to be loyal towards one parent without feeling
disloyal towards the other. The split loyalty occurs when a
child is forced to choose one parent’s love at the cost of
seeming to betray the other parent. In this situation, the
child is deprived of the acknowledgement of that parent
and of his or her right to give to him or her. It is not possi-
ble to give and it is not possible to receive. The trust is
broken. The backlash is severe: for example, the suicide of
teenagers is frequently the result of split loyalty.
When direct expression of loyalty is not possible, invisi-
ble loyalty becomes a destructive form of the attempt to
remain loyal. Invisible loyalty is not the same as ‘uncon-
scious’ loyalty. It is a behavior disloyal to one person which
is in fact an expression of loyalty to a third party. A
common example is where an adult has cut off from
parents but at the same time behaves destructively toward
his spouse and children. Invisible loyalties can involve both
giving and receiving, and rejunctive (see below) attitudes
can stop this destructive configuration.
The Therapy
Contextual Therapy is oriented toward discovery, and
acknowledging family resources and strengths. The explo-
ration involves at least three generations. The long-term
balance of fairness, or give and take, within the family and
between generations, is considered the most important
determinant of mental health and creativity. One goal of
Contextual Therapy is to help family members find a
balance between giving and receiving that leaves no family
members with an unjust burden. Recently, Boszormenyi-
Nagy has specified his conception of therapy:
The goal of therapy is not mainly to improve communica-
tions, to understand unconscious need configurations or
drives, or to correct faulty cognition. Neither is it to solve
concrete problems. Nor do I believe that it is the place of
the therapist to solve ultimate philosophical questions of
epistemology. Rather, the goal of therapy is to enable
people to live satisfying, mutually constructive lives and to
allow their offspring to experience the same, with the sur-
vival of posterity in sight (Boszormenyi-Nagy, 1995: 34).
Contrary to its surface appearance, Contextual Therapy is
not a form of long-term therapy. It is more often a short-
term therapy and after four or five sessions that emphasise
resources and strengths in family, the family members
become able to build trust without the therapist.
ANZJFT September 2001
Boszormenyi-Nagy and Contextual Therapy: An Overview
Mutidirected Partiality
Multidirected partiality is the major methodological attitude
of contextual therapists, aimed at evoking a dialogue of
mutual position-taking among family members. It consists
of a sequential, empathic turning towards member after
member (even including absent members), in which both
acknowledgement and expectation are directed at them. The
attitude of multidirected partiality (Boszormenyi-Nagy,
1966) is essential to working for justice in families and
systems. Two main aspects are empathy and acknowledge-
ment. It is an alternative to ‘neutrality’ or unilateral
partiality. Multidirected partiality requires a therapist to
appreciate the ledger from each person’s point of view, even
that of the current victimiser. The application of multidi-
rected partiality cannot be reduced to specific techniques.
For each therapist, this application is influenced by gender,
age, experience, family of origin, etc. In this framework, it is
possible to develop imagination and creativity and, as Buber
says, the gift of ‘Imagining the real’.
From the start of therapy, the therapist leads the dia-
logue in order to provide for family members opportunities
of earning constructive entitlement. As soon as a family
member requires the therapist’s acknowledgement, he or she
can engage in the realm of care and self validation. Contrary
to other models of family therapy, there are no ready-made
questions for all situations. The therapist’s activity is dialogic
and the response is also a query. It is between the therapist
and family members that dialogue can build and develop. In
Contextual Therapy, the concept ‘termination’ is not
employed. Unlike strategic and structural therapies,
Contextual Therapy has no rite of termination. The aim of
therapy is not the founding of new rules but the enhance-
ment of resources and dialogue in the family.
Parentification and Deparentification
‘Parentification’ refers to the process by which one member
of the family, often a child, comes to act as an overly
responsible caretaker for another member, often a parent,
for several others, or for the family. Parentification becomes
harmful and destructive when it involves prolonged and
unilateral use of a child and when the adults fail to
acknowledge the child’s giving to them and ignore the
child’s needs and rights.
The process of deparentification is a major aim in the
initial phase of therapy and includes (Le Goff, 1999):
• Acknowledging the child for her/his helpful contribu-
tions to the family
• Acknowledging the parentification the parents experienced
in their families of origin and the burdens they carried
• Connecting the acknowledgement of the child’s paren-
tification and the experience of parents’s parentification,
which is important to attenuate the parents’ guilt in
order for them to re-commit to loyalties without polaris-
ing the generations
• Emphasising the importance for the child of being able
to continue to give, so as to earn self-delineation and
151
 Jean François Le Goff
self-validation. Therapy must help the child to find a
new position in the family without having to disqualify
his/her existing position
Rejunction and Exoneration
According to Boszormenyi-Nagy and Krasner (1986), ‘exon-
eration’ is a major moment in therapy and is ‘a process of
lifting the load of culpability off the shoulders of a given
person whom heretofore we may have blamed’. Exoneration
differs from forgiveness since ‘it replaces a framework of
blame with mature appreciation of a given person’s (or situa-
tion’s) past options, efforts and limits’ (Boszormenyi-Nagy
& Krasner, 1986: 416). It is an ethical reengagement and an
important option to give. When shame, blame, ambiva-
lence, rage, grief and guilt are intense, the process takes a
long time but the possibility of receiving through giving is a
source for exoneration. Multidirected partiality is very useful
in supporting this process.
On the other hand, Terry Hargrave (1994) considers
exoneration as the first step in a more complete process of
forgiveness. According to him, the two steps of exoneration
(insight and understanding) are completed through the two
steps of forgiveness (opportunities for giving and overt acts
of forgiveness).
Case Study: A Family Interview
The Background
Mr and Mrs V. made an appointment, because, for several
months, they had believed themselves to be the target of
the child protection services. On several occasions, a social
worker threatened to put their child into care. Even though
there was no neglect or mistreatment of their daughter, Mr.
and Mrs. V., because of their previous admissions into psy-
chiatric units, were considered ‘pathogenic’. Also the fact
that they themselves had been put into care as children
increased their feelings of shame and anxiety, which could
in turn lead to their daughter being put into care.
Mr V., now aged 30, never knew his father, who had
abandoned him at birth. His mother, who is now deceased,
had raised him with a half-brother, four years younger.
Because of his mother’s fragile health he was put into care
from the age of seven, in hostels or foster homes where he
proved to be a difficult and rebellious child. His attempts
to run away increased. Each time he ran away he tried to
get back to his mother. On one occasion he managed to
find her in hospital and spent the night hidden in her bed
so that he could stay with her. At that time, he was also
spending a lot of time protecting his brother who had deli-
cate health and was often the victim of ill treatment. In
adolescence, as school failure and behavioural difficulties
got worse, he was admitted to a psychiatric unit. He was
violent, unable to tolerate frustration, demanding, even
dangerous. Some years later he met his wife in an aftercare
home. Through contact with her he was able to calm down
and start working.
152 ANZJFT September 2001
Mrs V., now aged 26, was admitted to hospital several
times, due to violent and deep depressive states marked by
suicide attempts and unstable behaviour. She was also
brought up in a foster home, which she remembers with
fondness. During the discussions, she recalled with warmth
and emotion her adoptive mother, recognising that this
woman’s attentiveness had helped her to become a mother
herself. From the age of sixteen, she ran away more fre-
quently and her bouts of depression increased. Her
wanderings were apparently aimless and motiveless. After
meeting her husband, she stabilised and she now displays
excellent social skills. She easily finds part-time work as a
cashier in supermarkets, or as a waitress in cafes. Even when
she impulsively gives up her job, she has no trouble finding
other work because she is greatly appreciated by customers
and employers.
Mr and Mrs V. made an appointment at the medical
psychological centre, hoping to find allies to avoid their
daughter being put into care and to prove that they pre-
sented no danger to her. A family interview was proposed.
The mother was being monitored by a general practitioner
who prescribed tranquillisers and sleeping pills. The father
avoided all contact with doctors. The couple was interested
in the proposed interview.
The Interview
Before the start of this first interview Mr and Mrs V.
inform me that, following a serious argument, they have
not spoken to each other since the day before. Although he
looks angry, Mr V. seems to be very attentive towards his
wife and his daughter, Laetitia, aged six. He waits for them
to be comfortably seated before sitting down himself and
resuming his grumpy expression.
While the parents are ready to set about giving explana-
tions for their dispute, the therapist thinks that it is a
priority to begin to acknowledge the parentification of the
child. Yesterday’s argument gives him the chance to deter-
mine clearly whether the child’s efforts are being recognised
by her parents. The direction taken by the therapist takes
the parents by surprise, but they are nevertheless willing to
co-operate. During the interview, Laetitia sits between her
father and mother. She seems to relax quickly and she
listens attentively to the discussion. She has been given
sheets of paper and coloured pencils but she prefers to
listen to the conversation.
Therapist (addressing the father): You’ve just informed me
that you had an argument yesterday, but what seems
important is not to find out who was right and who was
wrong but to see how your daughter reacted in such diffi-
cult circumstances. When you are both angry, do you think
that she tries to help you to get out of the bad situation?
Father: I’m very angry you know. It’s difficult to imagine
how aggressive I become. I’m angry with other people but
also with myself. But sometimes I feel so hurt, I feel so bad
that I start to cry. I try to hide — because I’m ashamed of
crying. I don’t want to be comforted. I don’t want to see
anybody again and I’m afraid of becoming violent like I
was when I was put into hospital or in a home.

The father does not answer the question about his daughter
but he needs to express his problems and test whether the
therapist is someone who is ready to listen him. He conveys
both the need to regress and the need for acknowledgment.
This is the beginning of the parentification of the therapist
(‘transference’ in the dimension of individual psychology).
Th: It’s important for me that you are able to express your
confusion through your words and your feelings. But it’s
also very important for me to know how your daughter
Laetitia reacts in these situations.
Father: It’s very violent — She’s probably afraid because
it’s very violent. Not toward her but toward the whole
world. So she starts to cry. But because she’s a girl she
takes refuge with her mother. But she never says a bad
word about me. She never accuses me of being nasty to
her. If she goes to her mother it’s not because she hates me
but it’s because my anger is terrible.
Th: In these moments, which are difficult for both you
and her, as you have said, do you have the impression that
she tries to help you despite her fear?
The father seems shocked by this question but he thinks for a
few moments and, finally, seems relieved to be able to answer.
Father: Yes, of course, last night she said ‘I forgive you.
But you have to forgive mum’.
When a child tries to unite his two arguing parents, the
latter tend to put the child into the position of arbiter and
pretend to accept this reconciliation. In this way, children
can become expert in the reconciliation of their parents,
but if that does not succeed, they begin to feel guilty,
believing they are responsible for the conflict. These situa-
tions carry the risk of split loyalty.
Th: Do you at that moment recognise the effort she
makes to try to reconcile you and your wife?
Father: Yes I believe so. I say, ‘Go and tell mummy that
I love her’.
When he and his wife are arguing, the father does not
immediately recognise his daughter’s help. He uses her as a
go-between. As the message is not aggressive, it doesn’t nec-
essarily have immediate repercussions. During quarrels, the
father does not directly recognise the help because it can
help achieve a reconciliation. But it is important that the
parents become aware of the exploitation that this repre-
sents. The therapist should set about helping them take
responsibility to recognise and stop this exploitation.
Mother: She doesn’t make trouble between us. She comes
to me but she doesn’t criticise her father. She doesn’t hate
him. She tries to understand his anger. She tries to help
us. She brings us together.
Now that the mother has taken a step forward in recognis-
ing her daughter’s contribution, the therapist explores the
possibility of this recognition being expressed.
Th: When you see that your daughter is helping you so
much, what do you say to her?
Mother: I console her because she’s a bit distressed. I
change my attitude to help her, so that it’s less difficult for
ANZJFT September 2001
Boszormenyi-Nagy and Contextual Therapy: An Overview
her. Sometimes, she cries, she’s unhappy, but she’s there
with me and so we console each other. I stop crying so that
it’s easier for her. She loves her Dad as much as she loves
me. Her father is a true father. He has lots of authority
over her but when he gets aggressive, she comes to me.
To help the parents consolidate this acknowledgment, the
therapist is going to explore the intergenerational context
and the links between the parentification of this child and
that of her parents during their childhood. Their loyalty
towards their parents will be brought into the picture and
their responses could be evasive, because Mr and Mrs V.
both have painful family histories. It is noted that Mrs V.,
when idealising her husband as a good father, parentifies
him. It is a positive factor, if it helps her to maintain a posi-
tive image of him in her daughter’s mind.
Th: When you see your daughter making all this effort to
reconcile you, does it remind you of a similar situation in
your childhood?
Mother: No, it was actually the opposite. It was me who
got angry. My foster mother was a restrained woman who
hadn’t a lot of character in comparison with her husband.
They got on well together, but they worried about me.
But I don’t have any clear memories of what happened
when I was that age.
Often adults say that they don’t remember being parenti-
fied; their loyalties were used to make them accept their
parents’ reproaches. There follows a sort of amnesia: the
absence of acknowledgment has reduced them to silence.
For Mrs. V., that shows itself in the split of loyalty between
her foster family and her biological family about whom she
has had never any information.
Th: (to the father): Can you make a comparison with
what you experienced in your childhood?
Father: Not at that age, perhaps not at the age of six
but later — I never witnessed that sort of situation.
Perhaps later …
Th: So what did you do to try and unite your parents?
Father (after hesitation): As with my wife, they weren’t
my parents. I never knew my father and my mother was
too ill to look after us. So they placed us in foster families.
I felt less involved because they weren’t my parents. There
were no arguments in that family. Apart from those about
me. What I wanted was to leave with my half brother to
go to my mother. Visit her more often. Nobody could
accept that. Our foster family wasn’t at all like our ‘family’.
Th: When you send your daughter to tell her mother
that you love her, who gives you the idea of doing that?
Father: She does, because we discuss things, she asks me
questions … because when I’m angry I can’t talk to my
wife any more and I say harsh and unfair things about
her. I think it’s horrible for my daughter.
Th: This argument has upset your daughter and has led
to her doing a lot to reconcile you. Are you able to adopt
an attitude that allows you to thank and appease her?
It is important that the child does not feel responsible for
the parents’ disagreement. The therapist tries to make the
parents advance a step in acknowledging parentification. So
153
 Jean François Le Goff
he uses the term ‘thank’ which addresses the acknowledg-
ment of what was given and the term ‘appease’ which
addresses the parental imperative.
Father: I often tell her that she is an adorable little girl,
that I love her.
Mother: After arguments she can play just as easily with
her father as with me, she’s not traumatised, she’s still
close to her father. I want her to admire him.
Th (to Laetitia): I’ve noticed that you haven’t missed a
word of what your parents and I have been saying. And I
have the impression that even if they talk about some-
thing that has been very difficult for you, they are ready
to recognise what you give to them.
Laetitia: Yes, I’ve listened to everything. They’ve said
thank you to me and I trust them but I’d like them never
argue again.
Th: When Laetitia takes the initiative to bring you
closer, do you, for your part, take initiatives for her?
Mother: We do everything we can for her to feel OK
(She turns to her husband.)
Father: Yes, that’s right.
The therapist is going to evaluate the possibility of Split
Loyalty.
Th: When there is a lot of tension between you, do you
feel only anger or is it contempt as well?
Mother: It’s anger. We hurt each other, we say things
that aren’t very nice. But when it’s over we apologise. I
regret it … Contempt? No, I don’t think so. My husband
is somebody I admire.
Father: At the time I hate her, she hates me. But not
afterwards.
Th: You have told me a lot of important things about
your lives and I want to thank you for trusting me. Do
you think it could be important for the three of you to
find a link between your experiences and what Laetitia is
experiencing?
Given the progress made by the mother and father the ther-
apist shows them an intergenerational way they can take in
order to avoid their child having split loyalty.
Father: No, it’s very different, you can’t compare it.
Th: Could you explain these differences to me ?
Father: They are huge. When I was six, I didn’t have my
own parents. They didn’t allow me to live with my
mother nor to meet her. I looked after my half-brother. It
was understandable — he was smaller than me and very
fragile. It’s difficult to explain but I think that Laetitia has
a more healthy and balanced life than ours at that age; she
can learn on both a mother and a father.
Th: The difference is perhaps that Laetitia has the
chance to be able to help her parents — but what can you
give her to recognise what she does? It’s possible that your
arguments scare her but they are also moments when she
has the opportunity to help you. Have you been, like her,
in the situation of helping people who were arguing?
Father: I haven’t done that — I don’t know, I can’t
compare..
Th: Does that mean that you’ve never been in a situa-
tion where you can give help to someone else?
154 ANZJFT September 2001
Father: I’ve never been in a family where they trusted
the children. It’s not like it is for Laetitia. For me it was
loneliness and reproaches. I had nobody to lean on. They
stopped me from seeing my mother. I couldn’t comfort
her. I had to defend my half-brother because he was
fragile and he sometimes became the scapegoat for other
children. You know, at that time children without parents
weren’t liked very much. It was like having dirty disease. I
had to fight. I hated that, but I was very strong, I could
take advantage of the situation.
The intervention of the therapist leads to a distresed reac-
tion from the father when articulating the division of his
loyalties between his foster family and his mother. There is,
in effect, a context of neglect that facilitates the parentifica-
tion of his daughter; he idealises the current family as a way
of fighting against the social control agents who have tar-
geted them as an ‘at risk’ family. Moreover, he was
parentified so he could support his half-brother.
Th: At that time did anyone recognise the help that you
gave to others?
Father: Um…
Th: Does anybody at all come to mind?
Father: At the psychiatric hospital there were people
who were beaten and blackmailed. Of course, they were
the people who couldn’t defend themselves, who were
afraid. So I intervened to stop it, but that made people
think that I was violent. I didn’t expect any recognition.
Anyway the psychiatrists and the nurses thought that I
was dangerous. They even had a meeting to decide if I
was extremely dangerous!
Th: You told me that you were very worried about your
mother’s health. When you were a child did you know
anyone, an adult, who recognised and accepted what you
did to help your mother?
Father: I once managed to find her in a hospital. I must
have been eight or nine. I hid in her bed, all night so that
I could stay with her. We were happy together but we
missed my brother. When the nurse found me in the
morning she gave me jam and slices of bread. My mother
laughed and she was happy about had happened. She
must have cried when the doctor on duty told her that it
wasn’t possible to keep me. She was very tired then. She
promised to look after herself well so she could get us
back but that never happened.
It was important to explore all the contradictions in the
existential context of the mother and the father. That will
be done in subsequent sessions to help them find the time
when they were able to gain a constructive entitlement.
Contextual Therapy Today
One of major criticisms of family therapy is that it empha-
sises individuation at the expense of family ties. According
to Sprenkle (1994),
… some writers, however, argue that USA family therapy
theory, by encouraging individuals to differentiate from
their families so they can rely on themselves, may con-
tribute to materialism, weak relationship networks, and
damage to ecology (Sprenkle, 1994: 8).

Contextual Therapy builds a language for understanding
the evolution of families without moralistic inflexibility.
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy countered the mechanistic and
moralistic views of family crisis:
I propose that the relational predicament of our age
results primarily from a relational fragmentation and dis-
integration of earned trust rather than, as it may
superficially appear, from a rigidity of family patterns and
rules (Boszormenyi-Nagy in Rutter, 1992: 1).
Transgenerational solidarity becomes an ethical alternative
to the process of fragmentation and traditional patriarchal
values. Since 1980, the issues of gender and cultural diver-
sity have been the two major challenges for family therapy.
Many models of family therapy are not able to stand up to
this challenge. Feminist therapists have criticised systems
theory for its failure to address the unique position of
women and girls in the family and its inability to consider
women’s view of family violence. Neutrality denies the
asymmetry of power between men and women.
Furthermore, systems theory neglected cultural specificity
and ethnicity and its description of human life has often
been abstract, failing to take into account the everyday
world and the concrete predicaments of existence.
Bernal and Ysern (1986) examined family therapy in
terms of its ideological content. The family and family
therapy aren’t natural systems but social systems under the
influence of the ideology of a given society. The adoption of
cybernetics and biological systems theory give rise to five ide-
ological elements: family reductionism and blaming; the
relabeling of personal injustice by using communicational ter-
minology; the assumption that the nuclear family is optimal;
the conceptualisation of therapy as a commodity; and the
model of human relatedness and intimacy supported by
family therapy. The Contextual framework with its emphasis
on relational fairness, loyalty, accountability to others and rec-
iprocity offers an opening for reflection on these matters.
According to Judith Grunebaum (1987), the core concepts of
Contextual Therapy provide a coherent answer to feminist
critiques of systems theory as a foundation for family therapy.
The convergence between relational ethics and Carol
Gilligan’s ‘ethic of care’ (1982) is substantial.
Assessment in Contextual Therapy
Just like other models of family therapy (except behavioural
and cognitive family therapies), Contextual Therapy’s
assessment method is primarily empirical and clinical,
though some studies try to analyse its objective characteris-
tics. Bernal (1990) compiled a Contextual Family
Therapy–Therapist Action Index (CFT–TAI). A review of
this index highlights, in part, the key attitudes of contex-
tual therapists. Their therapeutic activities are oriented
towards supporting family members (present or absent) in
the therapy room, linking goals and objectives to current
and future generations, eliciting discussion of family-of-
origin relations and linking these to the current problem,
building trust, interrupting the scapegoating process,
ANZJFT September 2001
Boszormenyi-Nagy and Contextual Therapy: An Overview
acknowledging the efforts of various family members and
discussing the issue of fairness and justice in relationships.
Unlike the redefining or reframing of problems, setting
tasks in therapy or controlling the flow of interaction are
not typically employed by contextual therapists. Hargrave,
Jennings, and Anderson (1991) worked out a relational
ethics scale based upon Contextual theory, but revealed the
difficulty involved in quantifying relational ethics concepts
for empirical research. Contextual concepts are very
complex, despite their outward simplicity, and it is difficult
to use them in an objective study.
Critique of Contextual Therapy
The two main criticisms of Contextual Therapy are, firstly,
that it unnecessarily imposes a moralistic view on therapy
and an ethic that emphasises individual rights and, in the
second place, that it does not understand and does not use
systemic and circular theory (Wendorf & Wendorf, 1985).
In rebuttal, Boszormenyi-Nagy (1985) objected that systems
thinking does not eliminate the consequence of behaviours
or rule out the ethics of responsibility. He asserts the impor-
tance of holding family members accountable for their
decisions and the consequences of those decisions.
Three of the most informed and relevant criticisms of
the Contextual approach are introduced in the works of
Kaslow (1987), Luepnitz (1989) and Van Hekken (1990).
According to Kaslow, the basis of Contextual Therapy is
very sophisticated and probably too intellectual to make it
possible to work therapeutically with individuals from
lower socioeconomic or less educated backgrounds.
However, the experience of many contextual therapists in
the USA or in Europe is that the notions invoked by
Contextual theory are central to everyone whatever their
ethnic background, ideology, educational level, social class
or income level. The major components of relational ethics
— trust, fairness, loyalty, and reciprocity — are not limited
to any one class of people.
According to Deborah Luepnitz, Contextual Therapy is
an interesting kind of treatment in the context of child-
abuse. According to her it contains ‘a number of concepts
that share common grounds with feminism’ (Luepnitz,
1989: 70) but this does not guarantee it totally against
mother-blaming. Furthermore she criticised the terminol-
ogy of Contextual Therapy:
There is indeed a large segment of the population that
thinks of life in terms of a business and work ethic, but
adopting this language as one’s clinical idiom gives it
unnecessary legitimacy (Luepnitz, 1989:74).
This criticism disregards the most recent formulations in
Contextual Therapy under the major influence of feminist
therapists such as Judith Grunebaum and Margaret Cotroneo.
Buber’s writings about dialogue provide the language used in
the recent development of Contextual Therapy.
In a study on parent–child relationships in Dutch fami-
lies, Van Hekken (1990) concludes that most parents and
155
 Jean François Le Goff
children agreed with most aspects of Contextual theory, but
there were some notable exceptions. Very few shared Nagy’s
ideas about entitlement. Many parents put it: ‘How can
you earn merit if you just do your duty?’ The results
suggest that the concepts of entitlement and merit may
need to be rethought. In the Contextual view, this criticism
confuses the sense of entitlement (in the psychological
dimension) with entitlement (in the ethical dimension),
but, as Luepnitz comments, this underlines the difficulty of
deciding upon the terms to be used in relational ethics.
This emphasises Luepnitz’s point about the difficulty of
arriving at terminology which does not initially convey ide-
ological associations or value assumptions.
Conclusion
Lyman Wynne notes in his foreword to the Handbook of
Family Therapy, that Boszormenyi-Nagy is one of the few
thinkers who explicitly goes ‘beyond family therapy to
models that can become relevant general healthcare delivery
in which the family is a subsystem, and family therapy is a
component of treatment planning’ (Wynne in Rutter,
1992: 1). Contextual Therapy is an intergenerational
therapy focused on trust and resources. In concerning
oneself about others, in giving with fairness and equity, in
assuming one’s own accountability, it is possible to earn
constructive entitlement that counterbalances the destruc-
tive entitlement earned through the loss of trust and the
unfairness that underpins destructive acts and behaviours.
The dimension of relational ethics is specific and central in
Contextual Therapy; it is not a moralising view of relation-
ship, defining the good and the bad, but it embodies
concern about the consequences for the future and unborn
generations, and concern for fairness between adults and
children, men and women, and different ethnic groups.
To conclude this paper, I want to thank you for having
had the patience to read this account of the possibilities for
dialogue offered by family therapy. The writing of this
paper has been a strange experience. The subject is, in part,
the work of an Hungarian in exile in the USA who
remains, his friend Jim Framo as says, a ‘European
American’. I, the actual writer of this paper, live and work
in France but my native language is not French, and I do
not speak fluent English. In my childhood, I imagined
digging a tunnel that opened out into the Pacific Ocean.
Today this paper, for an audience in Australia and New
Zealand, is my road under the sea. In Breton, my native
Celtic language, ‘Goodbye, see you later’ is translated as
‘Kenavo an distro’. So, I now say to you ‘Kenavo an distro’.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Hugh and Maureen Crago for
their editorial assistance in the preparation of this article for
publication, Elena Blacioti (Paris) for her help in the writing
of this article and Claire Miran-Khan for the first contact.
156 ANZJFT September 2001
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