(3) The freedom to say what is NOW instead of what should be, could be, was, or will be.

(4) The freedom to reach out for what you want instead of what you should want, not having to wait for someone to offer it to you.

(5) The freedom to take risks in your own behalf instead of only waiting for a change in the situation to make it possible for you to have what you want for yourself.

To summarize,

When I can see and hear what is here now, feel what I feel now;

Say what I feel, think, hear, see now;

When I can reach out for what I want now;

And can take risks in my own behalf now;

When I can communicate all of this congruently now;

And can get feedback creatively now;

Then I am in a position to cope inventively with the situation outside of myself and the life inside me successfully –

NOW.

This book is our effort to translate people “unfreedoms” into freedoms.

_{PART I}

_Introduction

In the following pages we will present our particular view of the manifold and exciting field of family therapy. As with any complex area of human behavior, the ability of therapists to perform family therapy far outruns their ability to explicitly understand and communicate to others what they specifically do when they practice family therapy. The purpose of this book is to attempt to make understandable to the reader the patterns of which we have become aware in our practice of family therapy and to catch up the theory of family therapy with its practice. Specifically,