Responding to Blame in Family Therapy: A Constructionist/Narrative Perspective

Abstract

Blaming events (N=25) were identified in seven interviews conducted by prominent theorists who espouse a constructionist or narrative approach to family treatment. Congruent with this perspective, we used conversation analysis (Gale, 1996) and the grounded theory method of constant comparison (Corbin & Strauss, 1990) to identify the therapists’ behaviors and strategies following blame expressed by family members. Results indicated three core categories or themes of therapists’ responses to blame−Ignoring/Diverting, Acknowledging/Challenging, and Reframing−subsuming 17 individual codes (e.g., challenging all-or-none thinking, highlighting neutral information, interrupting, focusing on competence). The most frequent code was focusing on the positive.