kely to fight with one another due to their feelings of insecurity about their roles in the marriages and the families. They may adopt a hostile stance towards their stepchildren because they fear that the latter will undermine the strength of the new marriage. At the same time, couples as parents also have a stronger attachment to their own children than their new spouses, thus engendering feelings of insecurity or frustration on the part of the spouse. Moreover, each parent's struggle to deal with their feelings towards their own children and stepchildren can create friction in the marriage. Finally, some couples in blended families will also have to deal with the adverse interventions of former spouses through conflicts over the children (Banker & Gaertner, 1998).
In order to resolve these types of marital and family crises, some families of all types rely on psychotherapy. For many decades, family therapy theory had been primarily governed by the concepts of family systems and structures. The concept of family systems is instrumental in illuminating the interconnections between family members, which extend the focus beyond the individual. However, this theoretical concept has its limitations. Most importantly, it is premised on an oversimplified and static view of families as "rigid, geometric arrangements of people" (Freedman & Combs, 1996, p. 1). Essentially, this perspective fails to acknowledge the dynamic quality of family relationships that are constantly changing in response to the individuals involved and their interactions with one another (Freedman & Combs, 1996).
Cox (1997) also raised another criticism of the traditional family therapeutic approach by highlighting traditional therapists' tendency to compartmentalize services for the family. While many family therapists focus on the marital relationship and exclude children from the therapeutic process, child therapists tend to neglect the parents' in...