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Does History End with Postmodernism?
Toward an Ultramodern Family Therapy*
Although the end of history has often been announced, human thought continues to renew itself, always incorporating, in each of its stages, important aspects of what has come before. In this sense, neither family therapy in general, nor its more particular postmodern orientations, have led to a radical break with the past. Neither can they claim to have reached a comfortable, definitive position. The subjectivist turn that introduced postmodernism into the systemic model has enriched it with important theoretical and practical elements, such as the critique of a therapist's supposed objectivity, circular and reflexive questioning, or the technique of externalization. This article proposes to take the renewal of systemic family therapy farther by addressing still unresolved issues, such as the role of the individual in relational systems, the place of emotions, or the construction of a relational psychopathology. The term "ultramodern family therapy" is proposed until such
time as there is agreement upon a better one.
Fam Proc 40:401-412, 2001
IT is already some years since the intellectual community was rocked, not wholly without irritation, by the provocative formulations of Fukuyama (1992), at a time when communism was tottering and giving way on all fronts to a victorious and overwhelming capitalism. In a forcefully entitled work, "The End of History and the Last Man," he argued that the process of history had culminated in the enthronement of a capitalist world order. Moreover, he was not the only author who dared to declare that history had ended. In fact, there is a tendency within Western thought, and no doubt in other traditions as well, to place oneself outside of time, as can be witnessed in the survival of a wide variety of millenarianisms, both religious and political. While this can be seen as an effective defense against the anxiety generated by the limitations, vulnerability, and insignificance of human beings, it does not serve to stimulate scientific or philosophical advances.
That rare combination of pride and modesty, which characterizes the scientist and the philosopher, demands that the historical dimension be taken on board and so places their work on a continuum whose roots lie in the distant past and which must project itself...