Lynn Hoffman

Lynn Hoffman (Paris, France, September 10, 1924; December 21, 2017) was an American social worker, family therapist, author and historian of family therapy. Her mother, Ruth Reeves was a painter, Art Deco textile designer and an originator of the American Index of Design. She graduated summa cum laude in English literature in 1946 from Radcliffe College, and after editing psychology works, she started MSW studies in 1969 and specialized in family therapy.

Originally a systems-strategic theorist and therapist, she became a proponent of post-systems/post-modern/collaborative approaches. She was an advisory editor of Family Process and Journal of Marital & Family Therapy. Until her retirement in 2000, she had for many years been on the faculty of the Ackerman Institute and the Smith College School of Social Work. She spent her last years as a lecturer at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, Connecticut.