Chance operations in training: a participatory format for introducing dialogical family therapy

Presenting dialogical approaches to therapy calls for training approaches that are themselves participatory and dialogical. The use of chance operations is one way of enhancing an interactive and co‐constructive learning process.     

Fostering Client Creativity in Family Therapy: A Process Research Study

Creativity has been shown to enhance problem solving, and to increase flexibility and adaptability—qualities associated with positive therapeutic outcomes. Literature related to therapist and/or client creativity is primarily anecdotal. Empirical literature addressing how therapists can facilitate the creativity of their clients in family therapy is scarce. In this study, the researchers used process methodology to code the behavior of therapists and clients in 31 videotaped family therapy sessions. Results show a significant positive correlation between interventions that induce positive affect and the creative client behaviors of optimism and playfulness.     

Training in family systems theory: A group experience

This paper describes the utilization of a family-of-origin group experience in clinical training. This model encourages attention to group process as well as content, as members study both theory and their own families. The potential difficulties and boundary issues that arise in such a group experience are addressed. Case examples are presented that illustrate the nature of the process and the student’s response to the experience.     

Experiential Exercises in MFT Training: Gender, Power, and Diversity

An experiential exercise that is used to empower Marriage and Family Therapy students and systematically introduce students to feminist themes is described. Faculty in the university's theatre department recruit their students to serve as client families. Role-play exercises with theatre students based on vignettes developed by clinical faculty increases realism and includes other training benefits. This approach is consistent with a feminist model of training and supervision.     

Selective mutism in children: A structural family therapy approach to treatment

When children refuse to speak in some social settings, but can understand and speak in other settings, the diagnosis of selective mutism must be considered. A review of the literature describes the disorder, the various types of mutism, and related family dynamics. A family systems approach to treatment using structural family therapy is suggested. The case history presented illustrates one type of mutism as well as the family rules and hierarchy which appeared to be maintaining it. Structural and strategic family systems theory techniques that were used to move the family toward resolution of this problem are discussed.Diane Wolf Tatem, MA, MS, completed graduate work in marriage and family therapy at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. She is employed at Life Management Center of El Paso's Child Development Services and also has a private practice in marriage and family therapy in El Paso, Texas. Robert L. DelCampo, PhD is a professor of family science at New Mexico State University and maintains a private practice with Associates for Marriage and Family Therapy in Las Cruces, NM. Please address all correspondence to Dr. DelCampo at Box 3470, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, 88003-3470.Appreciation is expressed to Dr. Charles Huber, New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, for his insightful critique of the final draft of this paper. This paper was presented at the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Annual Conference, January 25–29, 1995 in Dallas, TX.     

The path towards a professional identity: An IPA study of Greek family therapy trainees

Objective: Contemporary psychotherapy research has focused mainly on practitioners' training and education. The impact of training on professional development and the application of therapeutic skills have been the primary foci of the empirical literature. The aim of this paper is to present the experiences of seven family therapy trainees regarding their personal paths toward the development of professional identity as they underwent training in systemic psychotherapy. Method: In‐depth interviews were conducted and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results & Conclusions: Seven themes were identified: The Quest, Developing by Relating, Learnings, Personification of Training, Use of Self, Self‐Care and Empowerment, and Reflecting on the Role of the Therapist. The findings are discussed with regard to the development of the ‘therapist as a person’, gaining acknowledgement and autonomy, and the development of a community of therapeutic practice.     

Bringing forth spirituality dialogues in family therapy education

Our intention in the following article is to bring forth connections with spiritual resources in teaching and supervision. We construct this focus within a collaborative learning approach. Methods and techniques used include curiosity, reflexivity inquiry, deconstruction, outsider witness practices and re‐authoring conversations. We evaluate how the dialogue has transformed our abilities to relate to spirituality.     

Graduate trends for one marriage and family therapy program in an interdisciplinary setting

This research compared trends from 1981 to 1993 in several mental health professional training programs at the University of Houston Clear Lake, surveying graduates from three professional mental health master's programs—clinical psychology, school psychology, and family therapy—with the goal of identifying trends in the status of their professional credentialing and current employment. Four mental health groups have attained licensure since a 1981 survey, resulting in graduates now seeking professional licenses and perform psychotherapy more exclusively than other mental health activities. Interdisciplinary training has become increasingly important due to the introduction of managed care and other insurance regulating entities.     

Joining with all members of a family system: The rhetoric of antilogic in family therapy dialogue

Family therapists face a significant rhetorical challenge in working with families that disagree about the problematic life-situation which brought them to therapy. Therapists must find a way to join with disagreeing family members and then find a way to engage in a therapeutically useful conversation with them. Thus, they must deal resourcefully with contradictions. This article explores the ways that the Sophistic rhetorical concept of antilogic may be employed in helping therapists join and then engage in a therapeutically useful conversation with families who hold contradictory views concerning the problem that brought them to therapy.The author wishes to thank Ronald Chenail, PhD, Douglas Flemons, PhD, and Shelly Green, PhD, for their assistance in the development of this project.     

A structured approach to disengagement in family therapy with child-focused problems

The aim of this paper is to describe a structured approach to managing the disengagement process. Six distinct disengagement scenarios are first outlined. Thereafter, phasing out therapy, dealing with family belief systems concerning the permanence of improvements and relapse management are discussed. Ways in which disengagement from specific episodes of therapy may be construed as part of an ongoing therapeutic relationship and the practicalities of recontracting for further episodes of therapy, handing over cases, and referring cases on to other professionals are considered. An approach to therapeutic failure analysis is presented. Finally, ways in which disengagement may lead to significant loss experiences are discussed.     

Family history and gender roles: Critical factors in practitioners' views of family interactions

This study examined practitioners' perceptions of family and individual family member functioning in relationship to family roles, gender of family leadership, beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment, and paternal division of responsibility in practitioner family of origin. Practicing counselors and mental health therapists rated two videotaped family interviews, one demonstrating a matriarchal style of family interaction and the second a patriarchal style. Findings indicated that practitioners were vulnerable to view a patriarchal style of family interaction as more healthy in comparison to a matriarchal style and that their perceptions of family members were related to personal beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment and to personal family history. These and other findings suggest that practitioners may be prone to errant perceptions and misguided intervention related to personal history and attitudes.     

Recent and emerging trends in marital and family therapy regulation

The number of states in the United States that formally credential marital and family therapists has tripled to 31 during the last decade. This paper reviews and compares the basic licensure and certification requirements in these states, and explores a number of broad issues currently confronting the field of marital and family therapy regulation. Several recommendations for improving the quality of MFT regulation are also provided.president of the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards.     

Depressed youth: treatment outcome and changes in family functioning in individual and family therapy

This study explores the role of family functioning in therapeutic change in focused individual psychodynamic psychotherapy (FIPP) and time‐limited systems integrative family therapy (SIFT) for depressed children and adolescents. After a screening process, 72 participants aged 8 to 15 were randomized to either FIPP or time‐limited SIFT. Assessments took place prior to, at the end of, and 6 months after treatment. Families in both SIFT and FIPP showed a small but significant and sustained improvement in family functioning by the end of treatment in both mothers' self‐reports and family therapists' assessments. Better family functioning at baseline in mothers' self‐reports and improved family functioning during SIFT, as assessed by family therapists, predicted a sustained decrease in self‐reported depressive symptoms. Results indicated that time‐limited SIFT may be more effective with younger children and in patients without a diagnosis of double depression than adolescents.     

Family Therapy in France: A Brief Overview

The major issues in contemporary family therapy in France are described: Difficult beginnings, the practice of family therapy today, training and professionalisation, organization for family therapy, journals and publishing, and perspectives for family therapy in France.A psychiatrist, Head of Hospital Psychiatric and Mental Health Center near Paris (Ville Evrard. France 93330) and a family therapist     

Program for advanced studies in integrative psychotherapy: Family,couple, and individual therapy (an interdisciplinary program)

This article describes briefly an advanced program in integrative marital and family therapy and individual psychotherapy established at the Hebrew University of Jersusalem in 1993–94 and its first two years of successful operation.     

The application of a domains‐based analysis to family processes: implications for assessment and therapy

Social domains are classes of interpersonal processes each with distinct procedural rules underpinning mutual understanding, emotion regulation and action. We describe the features of three domains of family life – safety, attachment and discipline/expectation – and contrast them with exploratory processes in terms of the emotions expressed, the role of certainty versus uncertainty, and the degree of hierarchy in an interaction. We argue that everything that people say and do in family life carries information about the type of interaction they are engaged in – that is, the domain. However, sometimes what they say or how they behave does not make the domain clear, or participants in the social interactions are not in the same domain (there is a domain mismatch). This may result in misunderstandings, irresolvable arguments or distress. We describe how it is possible to identify domains and judge whether they are clear and unclear, and matched and mismatched, in observed family interactions and in accounts of family processes. This then provides a focus for treatment and helps to define criteria for evaluating outcomes.     

Involving the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child patient: A psychodynamic approach

The purpose of this article is to provide psychotherapists with a tool for family evaluation using the basic principles of psychodynamic work; and to introduce a transitional format for therapists who have practiced family evaluations in their training institutions and now need to adapt this model to the private practitioner's office. A case example illustrates: (1) Use of the therapist's unconscious for diagnosis of the child and its family, (2) joining the family's intersubjective space, and (3) use of play and therapist's neutrality as ways that the psychodynamically oriented clinician involves the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child.