Some conceptual distinctions are more useful than others.

Useful distinctions in conceptual schemes lead to explanatory or descriptive metaphors that have a clear form. Muddles, on the other hand, are created when useful distinctions that could be drawn are not or when an unnecessary distinction is drawn. The field of family therapy, now involved in an explicit epistemological and paradigmatic shift, has various muddles of each kind. The purpose of this essay is to describe some of these muddles and to suggest that making a distinction between "the study of the family-as-a-system" and "the study of family-therapy-as-a-system" leads to some useful and clear metaphors.