51 pages 1 hour read

Augustus Y. Napier, Carl Whitaker

The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy

Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1978

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

“It’s important to search for your own unconscious agenda.”


(Chapter 1, Page 6)

Whitaker and Napier’s work is rooted in Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind. The idea that most of people’s actions and emotions are motivated by underlying processes carried over into family therapy, where it was applied to the whole family as one unified unconscious.

Quotation Mark Icon

“But however faulty, the family counts on the familiarity and predictability of their world. If they are going to turn loose this painful predictability and attempt to reorganize themselves, they need firm external support. The family crucible must have a shape, a form, a discipline of sorts, and the therapist has to provide it. The family has to know whether we can provide it, and so they test us.”


(Chapter 1, Page 11)

Napier draws on simile and metaphor to describe the nature of therapy and the difficulties that families face in confronting the need for change in their carefully crafted lives. A family relies on the way they have always been, and changing the entire structure of a family is a daunting task. The family must therefore be assured that the therapist is up to it.

Quotation Mark Icon

“The whole family stumbled into an approach that called into question some of their most basic assumptions about individual autonomy, about causation and motivation in human relationships, and about the nature of psychological growth.”


(Chapter 3, Page 38)

Family therapy was a developing field in the 1970s, and families who underwent this new process were part of a learning curve for therapists as well as courageous in their decision to try something not yet well researched. The family structure must be undone and reworked, and this is done by examining unconscious processes in each individual member.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
Unlock IconUnlock all 51 pages of this Study Guide
Plus, gain access to 8,550+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
+ Mobile App
+ Printable PDF
+ Literary AI Tools