Family-based therapy

In a recent address to members of the American Psychological Association, Ellen Berscheid (1999) acclaimed “the greening of relationship science�? (p. 206), or the emergence of a multidisciplinary science of the study of human relationships and their connection to a wide range of conditions encountered by researchers and practitioners in the psychological and behavioural sciences. Particularly compelling was Berscheid’s observation of the potential for relationship science to reshape the landscape of the field of psychology. Part of this reshaping has taken the form of a new subspecialty within psychology: family psychology intervention science (Liddle et al., 2002). This new subspecialty is concerned with using basic and applied research to understand the relational and systemic nature of human problems, and with developing and testing theory-and reseach-based interventions.