The family meal: An exploration of normative and therapeutic ritual from an ethnic perspective

Family rituals are a rich source of meaning on behavioral, cognitive, and emotional levels. This article explores the meaning of a particular type of family ritual, the family meal, within a particular cultural context, the Jewish/Israeli ethnic perspective. It describes how the use of normative, mealtime rituals helps families change and heal. Mealtime rituals enable the therapist and the family to construct universal family processes, while allowing for a contextual assessment of the particular cultural and historical meanings and resources of the family in therapy. Two case examples illustrate the use of the family meal as the basis of therapeutic interventions.