On description of family therapy

This article offers a critical analysis of the convergence of two perspectives, constructivism and the cybernetics of cybernetics, as they affect the value placed upon description of family therapy. An analogy to the problem of describing interaction in family therapy is drawn from the history of the representation of reality in art. It is argued that (a) the "interactional approach" is incompatible with radical constructivism, and (b) "the shift from observed to observing systems" has resulted in an unnecessary devaluation of representational description of family interaction.