Why did Minuchin ever call his theory "structuralist?".
In this case the answer was provided by Lynn Hoffman. This famous family therapy historian answered my question precisely. Here was her story, quoted in full -- you'll see why we are so fond of having her with us:
My goodness, Lois, ... I will certainly have to jump in[to this conversation]. I'll only add one thing here, however, which is that when Sal [Minuchin] was writing his book in 1971, he showed a chapter to Jay [Haley], who was on the staff of the Philadelphia Clinic then, and later came to me and asked me to read it because Jay had said to him something to the effect of "If I was your publisher, I would reject this."
Minuchin told me, "I felt ten inches high." He looked very dejected, so I wanted to make him feel better, and after reading [his manuscript], I told [Minuchin] that I thought his book was going to be the first one to be a public hit. I also suggested that he should call his approach "structural" as there were so many uses of that word in the text, and because so many fields at that time were influenced by a preoccupation with structure.
Then I went to Jay and said, "Why did you tell Sal you didn't like his chapter? He told me you made him feel ten inches high."
Jay said he disagreed with Sal's theory of family therapy; that it was too general, and that he left out what Jay saw as more fine-grained steps. This was before Jay had put together his own book on Problem-Solving therapy, so I didn't know what he meant -- [nevertheless, the term ]. "Structural" stuck.
Cheers, Lynn
So that's the best story I know of about how the label "Structural Therapy" was applied to Salvador Minuchin's work.
~ Carlos J. Sanchez ~
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