Insurance and Family Therapy

The advent of recent theories of family structure and socially shared psychopathology that have found expression in the practice of family therapy are forcing a re‐examination of concepts of individual diagnoses in which the symptoms of an individual family member are viewed as a possible communication from a disturbed family system. In seeking reimbursement for family therapy through health and accident insurance, a problem is occurring because the traditional method of payment is based on the establishment of individual psychiatric diagnoses, and very few companies will insure a family for family therapy. This paper examines the three‐part system: insurers, family, and helping professions in relation to the significance of the conflict between traditional concepts of individual psychopathology and recent concepts of socially shared family psychopathology.