Luciano L'Abate, Ph.D.: The Acknowledged Father of Family Psychology

Luciano L'Abate, Ph.D., or Lu as he preferred to be called, died at the age of 87 on April 16, 2016. Lu is among those admired individuals who were unquestionably successful in both their personal and professional lives. For over a half a century, Lu pioneered and championed the field of Family Psychology. This special section of The American Journal of Family Therapy is a tribute to this extraordinary individual. The center piece of this special section is Lu's last and crowning publication which he entitled: “60 Years of Practice, Research, and Teaching in Family Psychology and Family Therapy.”

After this introduction is Lu's final publication. It is followed by five commentaries by some of Lu's closest professional colleagues: Gerald R. Weeks, Ph.D., Florence W. Kaslow, Ph.D., S. Richard Sauber, Ph.D., Roy M. Kern, Ph.D., and Robert Henley Woody, Ph.D. Each will reflect on Lu's article, comment on his professional contributions, and offer personal remembrances of their beloved colleague and friend.

Father of family psychology

Over the past two decades, Lu has been variously called the Father of Family Assessment, the Father of Relational Competence Theory, the Grand Visionary of Family Psychology, the Founder of Family Psychology, and the Father of Family Psychology. While all of these reflect his accomplishments, the last title is the highest distinction and should not be bestowed lightly nor without sufficient justification. First, a clarification is in order.

Family psychology and family therapy

While related to family therapy, which is the treatment specialty that focuses on therapeutic interventions with couples and families, Family Psychology is the psychological science specialty that focuses on the development and testing of relational theories, the evaluation and accountability of therapeutic interventions, and on preventive practices with individuals in their families. Both specialties nicely complement each other, and Lu researched and wrote about both, although Family Psychology was clearly his forte. Parenthetically, because of its status as an independent voice in the field, The American Journal of Family Therapy has consistently and intentionally published articles in both specialties throughout its history.

So what about this designation: Father of Family Psychology? In a book review, I wrote: “Family Psychology III: Theory Building, Theory Testing and Psychological Interventions provides a fascinating window into the soul of a pioneer researcher, clinician, and advocate. L'Abate has already been recognized as the Father of Family Assessment (Sperry, 2004), and time will tell if he is universally recognized as the Father of Family Psychology. In the meantime, he certainly will be remembered as the Grand Visionary of the field. While it might appear that L'Abate has merely dreamed the impossible dream, his reality-based research strategy has avoided tilting at windmills. His hundreds of publications attest to the careful, step-by-step efforts he has made in this quest” (Sperry, 2005). Then, I was somewhat cautious about bestowing that title of Father of Family Psychology on Lu; today I have absolutely no reservations. Why this change? In the past decade there have been incredible advances in Family Psychology, largely due to the theoretical developments and research results of Lu and his research colleagues.

Note the following appraisal of advances in the field. Writing in the second edition of my book, Family Assessment (Sperry, 2012). Lu wrote the following: “Since the publication of the first edition of this volume, many changes have occurred in the field of couple and family assessment, both conceptually and practically…. In the original version of this chapter” (L'Abate, 2004), I criticized the whole enterprise of couple and family assessment as having inadequate links with theory or with theoretical models as well as inadequate links between theory, evaluation, and interventions. At that time, I suggested some possibly embryonic solutions to improve these links even though there was no sufficient conceptual and empirical evidence to support them. Since publication of that commentary, however, those solutions have become fully operational and validated at both conceptual, empirical, and practical levels of theory-construction, evaluation, and intervention. These solutions will compose the substance of this chapter” (L'Abate, 2012). In large part, these “solutions” were articulated in his magnum opus, Relational Competence Theory (L'Abate et al., 2010).

Innovator, mentor, and editor

Following his doctorate from Duke University, Lu completed a postdoctoral fellowship in child psychotherapy at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. Presumably, here is where his interest and commitment to working with children and families took root. Later, he moved to Georgia State University where he was given laboratory space to develop the world's first monitored play therapy room. Thereafter, he developed the first Ph.D. program in Family Psychology. In the years that followed until his retirement from Georgia State “he mentored 30 doctoral candidates and an equal number of master's degree theses” (Sweeney, 2014, p. 9). Arguably, many of these graduates went on to careers in Family Psychology.

Finally, it should be noted that Lu had a long-standing and distinguished relationship with this journal over the years. He served as an editorial board member, as editor of the international department, and as book review editor. In that capacity he wrote several book reviews over the years. He also published many of his classic theoretical and empirical papers in this journal (Sweeney, 2014). For all these and previously mentioned reasons, we celebrate the life and accomplishment of our dear friend and colleagues in this special section.