Family Scapegoating Patterns and the Management of Depression

Abstract

One of the pressing needs in the understanding of human functioning is to develop conceptual means by which to comprehend the intrapersonal and the inter-personal fields of action within the one frame of reference. The importance of achieving this is difficult to dispute. Among other things, it would mean that fields of study which are now abstracted for minute examination would not be so easily mistaken for the whole of reality, but as merely part of it; it would mean that research could take more explicit account of the complexity of variables in a given situation; it would mean that comparisons between cultures were more meaningful; and it would mean that therapy, besides having better diagnostic facility, would be able to choose more freely the appropriate focus of treatment.