Voices in Family Psychology edited by F.W. Kaslow (1990), present in two volumes research, knowledge and practice within Family Psychology in the last 25 years. This massive compendium shows one of the crucial points in research and therapy: scientific and therapeutic observations differ from self-reports of the family members. The aim of this paper is to reframe the question of therelationship between self-report and observational approaches. In research the self-reported experience of the family complets our knowledge about the "inside" (Kantor, Lehr, 1976), the family's right to reality and its specific way of handling the infinite variety of individual differences in a group or system which makes confrontation and responsibility possible. We need, as Sandra B. Coleman puts it, openness and flexibility to discover, what families need. Some concepts for observation and self-report are presented: the psychological right to reality, the concept of transparence, the concept "Konfliktfahigkeit".
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