[The development of family therapy concepts--interrelationship between patients' and therapist's family]

During the last 20 years family therapy has well been established as a supplementary or alternative therapy to individual therapy within child and adolescent psychiatry. Along with the further development and the change of concepts of family therapy there has been a greater interest in the interrelationship within the triad of patient-family-therapist, too. In the training of family therapists the meaning of the family of origin has been recognized. The implications of the therapeutic professional activities on the psychiatrist's family has not yet thoroughly considered, however. In the present paper the development and the characteristics of some main concepts of family therapy are described. Illustrated by a case report the influences of family oriented therapeutic activities over the therapist's family are presented. Finally the interrelationship between the patient's and the therapist's family are discussed as a constructive element of a mutual learning process.