What does it mean to be a professional therapist? This paper explores some of the personal and cultural pressures that influence how we see ourselves as professional therapists. It then explores how these pressures impact upon our capacity to protect children and ourselves.

From a philosophic perspective on clinical practice, anorexic women and their therapists are at risk of being caught in the dichotomy between mind and body that has characterised Western thought, at least since Descartes. If doctors and patients collude in an obsession over weight and refeeding, arising from this flawed dichotomy, it may lead to flawed treatment. Patients describe eating restriction/going on hunger strike as a desperate attempt to achieve a sense of self that can develop into an addiction to the starving state. The extent to which contemporary treatments address these issues is examined.

This article explores some of the uses of absurdity and the unexpected in psychotherapy. Case examples are used to ground the discussion of some key ideas that inform an understanding of how absurdity and the unexpected might serve as catalysts or primers for change in the psychotherapeutic context. Erickson's confusion technique and some ideas derived from Bateson's understanding of cybernetics also serve an explanatory purpose.

Ideally, therapeutic practice and the underpinning theories which guide our activity are closely linked, yet in everyday work it is sometimes difficult to directly connect one to the other. The following transcript and commentary aim to closely align the systemic, cybernetic ideas drawn from the work of Gregory Bateson with the practical activity of the therapist. It draws on ideas of therapeutic system, negative explanation and restraint to provide a micro-analysis of a segment of an interview with a woman and her two children who have shared horrific experiences.

Exploring is the optimum mindset for the psychotherapist. From the outset, the project of Family Therapy offered both personal and theoretical support for this position. But have we lost the excitement of exploration in the conservative, correct and individually oriented world in which we practise? And does our style of communication hinder more than refresh us?

Helen Pavlin is an accredited mental health social worker and family therapist and accredited family dispute resolution practitioner in private practice in Darwin. She has been involved in social work and family therapy since the early 1970s in Australia and internationally. In 1996 she received the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal from the Australian Association of Social Workers. She is one of the assessors and associate editors for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. In 2007 Helen received the Journal Award for her outstanding contribution to the family therapy field in Australia. She is an accomplished writer and a member of the Australian Society of Authors. Her poems and book reviews have been published frequently in ANZJFT.