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This paper's aim is to enable family therapists from whatever approach to address family attachments during their work. It explores the role of attachment in the family, and how to enable therapists to increase security in the family so that family members can solve their own problems during and after therapy. The article gives a brief overview of the nature of family attachment relationships and the influence of secure and insecure attachments within the family and their narrative styles. This is described in language that a therapist might readily hold in mind and share the ideas in dialogue with families. The paper discusses the interplay between insecure attachments and other family problems, such as parental conflict and disagreements over authority. It also discusses ways of establishing a secure therapeutic base and the influence of the therapist's own attachment style. The implications for family therapy practice are described and illustrated by work with a specific family.

My 1979 paper described family mythology as a combination of the family's beliefs about itself (myths) and stories and legends that illustrate those beliefs. My ideas evolved to encompass family scripts which prescribe what is to be done about family beliefs. Rewriting family scripts and re-editing family mythology are seen as different punctuations of the same recursive therapeutic cycle. Narrative is also explored from an attachment research perspective, in which the coherence of narrative is shown to be associated with secure attachments, and hence coherence is a suitable goal for family therapy. A ‘family therapy story’ is told about our oldest tradition, that of always having to be ‘pioneers’, which cuts us off from new advances in research in other fields. Some interdisciplinary research in which the author was involved illustrates the value of collaboration between different perspectives.

Family mythology includes false or edited beliefs about the present which may be coupled with family legends which support those beliefs. Families are particularly likely to use their histories dys-functionally if they either see the present as an exact replication of the past or, in contrast, deny that the past has any relevance whatever. Re-editing myths involves enabling families to alter their relationships and their self perceptions. This allows a fresh exploration of the past; a process which can support and encourage further change. Case material is used to illustrate this.