A systems approach to the treatment of chronic encopresis.

This article addresses two issues which have received little attention from researchers or practitioners; encopresis as a chronic disorder, and its treatment via a systems-based approach to therapy. Chronic encopresis is viewed as a complex process rather than a static, symptomatic entity, with emphasis placed on the significance of family transactional patterns in the maintenance of the symptom. The case of a fourteen year old encopretic male is presented to illustrate the utility of assessing family contexts relevant to symptom display.