Responding to the question implicit in the title of the 1985 National Family Therapy Conference ‘Coming of Age’, the author argues that Australian family therapy still has a number of issues to face before it can be said to be a mature and independent adult. The paper focuses on three issues — ideology in family therapy, theory for practice, and practice itself— and raises questions about the adequacy of Australian family therapy's theoretical maturity, suggesting that there is still too much reliance on the ‘new’ and on the ‘guru’ rather than on a solid building on therape