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Avner Barcai, MD; Leslie Y. Rabkin, PhD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1972;27(6):804-808.

Abstract
Excommunication is a dramatic method of social control, typically used to extrude a deviant member of society until he is willing to declare his reacceptance of the values he has transgressed. As an active, intentional isolation technique, excommunication can be utilized in family therapy with severely conflicted families, especially those marked by extreme parental schism that undermines and sabotages all attempts at mutual cooperation in the socialization and control of a deviant child. In illustrating its usefulness, we have tried to demonstrate the positive impact it can have on all family members— as a distancing and individuating experience for the family-enmeshed child, and as a paradoxical, change-producing path to reciprocity between conflict-torn parents.

Author Affiliations
Jerusalem, Israel

From the Department of Child Psychiatry, Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication July 18, 1972.

Reprint requests to the Department of Child Psychiatry, Hadassah Medical Organization, PO Box B499, Jerusalem, Israel (Dr. Barcai).