Because of the complex, interwoven nature of a marital relationship, it is often difficult to separate the problems each partner may experience. One partner's symptoms may mask the other's problem. Or, one person's problem may be perpetuated by the other's behavior, interfering with the resolution of the problem. Further, each partner may encourage distress in the other as a result of differing expectations concerning rules of living together and who sets them. {200} FAMILY THERAPY In family therapy, the "identified patient" is seen as but a symptom, and the system itself (the family) is viewed as the client. Vincent D. Foley, _Current Psychotherapies_ Very often, one family member is labeled the one with the problem, the one who is "sick." When the family decides to enter therapy, it is usual for family members to feel troubled, scared, and confused. They realize that something is wrong, but they are uncertain about what is amiss and don't know what to do. The usual response to this perplexity is to push the "identified patient" forward--usually a child who is "the problem"--and try to make him or her the focus of treatment. As the members of the family are interviewed, individually and together, the therapist is able to assemble a coherent picture of the family, its typical ways of interacting, the habitual, automatic patterns of response of one family member to another, the family's values and beliefs. What one member tries to hide another often will express. The family therapist has a difficult double role, as both observer and participant. He or she needs to be able to notice what the styles of interaction of individual family members are and _at the same time_ interact with members of the family. The therapist tries to bring about meaningful emotional interchange, create an atmosphere of trust and rapport, and reduce the feeling that family members are threatened. Over time, the therapist seeks to show the members of a family how they tend to interrelate inappropriately, how their own ineffective defenses cause them to hurt one another. To do this, the therapist has to be able to cut through the vicious circles of resentment, anger, blame, frustration, and intimidation that frequently hold families in a death grip. THE THERAPIST'S FUNCTIONS In both marriage and family therapy therapists must: * establish a sense of rapport and trusting communication between clients and themselves {201} * use this rapport to bring out the conflicts, frustrations, and inadequate means of communication that burden their clients * see through denials, rationalizations, and excuses * push family members to put out in the open feelings and pains they have kept from one another * bring to a halt the family's tendency to focus on one person as a scapegoat, "the problem" * act in understanding, calm, and emotionally supportive ways and help supply the emotional stability that the couple or family temporarily lacks