The missing discipline: Foucault, discipline and family therapy

Family therapists have used the philosophy of the French critical theorist Foucault to help us think in more sophisticated ways about a range of topics, including power, society and culture. However, his work includes another key concept which has been largely neglected in family therapy: that of discipline. In this article I undertake an exploration of discipline and suggest that, by considering this element of Foucault's work, we might be able to develop more sophisticated frameworks to think about how institutions and our clients' expectations of those institutions shape what happens in the therapy room. I conclude by offering a few ideas that gesture towards what that framework might look like in therapeutic practice.