Current trends in the training of family therapists

The author describes and compares training programs for family therapists at 15 centers in 9 major U.S. cities, using a scale that reflects the spectrum of theoretical approaches to family therapy. At one end of the spectrum are the centers with an experiential orientation, at the other end are those with a structural orientation, and in the middle are those which combine these orientations. He concludes that although creative theoretical advances are being made at a few of these centers, the quality and design of training at the remaining centers suffer from the absence of an adequate diagnostic nomenclature for family therapy and from an insufficiently designed conceptual framework.