AbstractsCommunication

A preliminary study has been made to ascertain the effects of the movement styles of individual therapists in family therapy sessions. Films were used to observethe nonverbal movement styles of four different therapists on one selected family group.Charts are developed categorizing each of thetherapists' movement styles using the effort/shape system of notation and the classification system of Beels and Ferber (1972), and a discussion is presentedrelating each of these styles to their effect on the patterns observed through various parameters noted in the family system of interaction.It was concluded that the isolated parameters are valuable criteria for examining nonverbal communication in family therapy and that different styles and approaches to the family in therapy do change and influence thepresence of these parameters.