What is contextual family therapy

This week of the course focuses specifically on the contextual family therapy model, which was developed by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy. This model was influenced by psychoanalytic theory, however, contextual therapy is considered a distinct type of therapy compared to psychoanalytic family therapy. In Week 4, you were asked to look at psychoanalytic family therapy. This week, you should focus specifically on contextual family therapy. Review chapter 7, paying attention to Nagy's contextual therapy concepts specifically, plus review the other assigned readings that address contextual family therapy specifically. This model is considered an intergenerational model of therapy but it is different from Bowen’s intergenerational model, which you’ll study in Week 7.

Additional Materials

Though not required, you are invited to view the following videos of Ivan Boszmormenyi-Nagy providing therapy:

I Would Like to Call You Mother by Ivan Boszmormenyi-Nagy

Session Intro: This session, recorded in 1988 by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and digitally remastered in 2009, features Ivan Boszmormenyi-Nagy conducting a live, unedited therapy session with a family. The featured family includes four generations consisting of a delinquent adolescent, his chronically psychotic mother, grandparents and great-grandmother. Nagy’s model employs multidirected partiality, which includes discussing and acknowledging everyone’s positive contributions to counter their mistrust, blaming and self-defeating invisible loyalties.
Therapist Intro: Ivan Boszmormenyi-Nagy’s (1920-2007) focus on both the issues within the family system and how that system relates to society left a lasting impression on the field of Marriage and Family Therapy. As one of the field’s “Masters,” Nagy called therapists to focus on fairness in families and was best known for developing the contextual approach to family therapy. Trust, loyalty, and mutual support were the focal points of his work.