Family therapy in Japan—context and development

Japan Association of Family Therapy (JAFT) was founded in 1984, which was the beginning of the era of enthusiasm of family therapy in Japan. Today, family therapy has developed to one of the important clinical fields of psychotherapy and family support. The member counts of JAFT is approximately 1200, one-third of them are medical doctors, which is one of the features of family therapy in Japan.The clinical feature of family therapy is to understand clinical symptoms in the context of interaction and/or the belief of family members.The basic epistemological background has been the system theory for these several decades. Recently, a new paradigm of clinical practice has appeared, which is known as postmodern approach in western world, which is known as narrative therapy or narrative approach in Japan.The concepts and methods of family therapy has been gradually applied in clinical fields working with families, which, for example, have child or adolescent problems, marital problems, problems of mental illness or chronic physical illness including terminal care, psychosomatic problems, and so on.