Origins and Originality in Family Therapy and Systemic Practice


Book Description

The founding volume of the European Family Therapy Association book series presents new ideas confirming the crucial importance of systemic family therapy for family practice. Spanning paradigms, models, concepts, applications, and implications for families as they develop, experts in the field demonstrate the translatability of session insights into real-world contexts, bolstering therapeutic gains outside the treatment setting. Chapters emphasize the potential for systemic family therapy as integrative across theories, healing disciplines, modes of treatment, while contributors’ personal perspectives provide unique takes on the therapist’s role. Together, these papers promote best practices not only for therapy, but also research and training as professionals delve deeper into understanding the complexity and diversity of families and family systems. “div>Included in the coverage:• The story of an encounter: the systemic approach at the heart of innovative clinical practice. • Steps to an ultramodern family therapy.• From networks to resonance: the life journey of a family therapist.• How to give a voice to children in family therapy.• Systemic theory and narratives of attachment: integration, formulation, and development over time.• Virtual relations and globalized families: the Genogram 4.0 interview. Origins and Originality in Family Therapy and Systemic Practice offers practitioners and other professionals particularly interested in family therapy practice timely, ethical tools for enhancing their work./div




Supervision of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice


Book Description

This much-needed volume examines the process and practice of supervision in family therapy, with special emphasis on systemic practice. Expert trainers and supervisors from diverse disciplines take a systemic tour of the relationships between supervisor, therapist, and client, analyzing the core skills of effective, meaningful supervision—including questioning, listening, and reflecting—and their impact on therapy. These skills and others are applied to supervising therapy with individuals, couples, and families in areas including substance abuse, domestic violence, and research settings. Throughout the book, contributors share self-care strategies, so supervisors can stay engaged and creative, meet the many challenges entailed in their work, and avoid burnout. Among the topics covered: The resonance from personal life in family therapy supervision. Creating a dialogical culture for supervision. The supervisor’s power and moments of learning. Supervision and domestic violence: therapy with individuals, couples, and families. Systemic supervision with groups in child protection contexts. When the supervision process falters and breaks down: pathways to repair. The highly practical information in Supervision of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice is adaptable by readers to their particular supervisory or training needs. Novice and veteran mental health, social care, and social work practitioners and psychotherapists, will find it a substantial resource.




Systemic Research in Individual, Couple, and Family Therapy and Counseling


Book Description

This book examines systemic family therapy research, addressing key topics across the interrelated disciplines of psychotherapy, social work, and counseling. Drawing from contributions at the 2017 International Systemic Research Conference in Heidelberg, it includes both quantitative and qualitative research perspectives and outlines a wide array of approaches, using systems theory and constructivist epistemology. In addition, the book focuses on innovative paradigms, research strategies, and methods, seeking to bridge the gap between research and practice in the field of systemic family therapy. Finally, it provides guidance on submitting and maximizing the likelihood of research paper acceptance to leading family therapy journals. Topics featured in this book include: Effectiveness of research-informed systemic therapy. Mindfulness and compassion-based interventions in relational contexts. Use of SCORE (Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation) as an indicator of family functioning in Europe. Systemic approaches for working with couples with high conflict behaviors. Therapeutic-Factor-Oriented skill building in systemic counseling. Importance of client feedback in development of professional knowledge base. Systemic Research in Individual, Couple, and Family Therapy and Counseling is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students in family therapy, clinical psychology, general practice/family medicine, and social work as well as all interrelated psychology and medical disciplines.




New Horizons in Systemic Practice with Children and Families


Book Description

This open access book illustrates how systemic theory, as both a meta-theory and a relational organic theory, can be a suitable framework for understanding and appreciating the new horizons of systemic practice with children and families in their various contexts. The different chapters shed light on how systemic perspectives, as they are presented in their varying contexts, promote hope by giving room for reflections on uncertainty, change, opportunities, interconnections, and differences. The authors describe and reflect on how systemic approaches can be useful for practitioners and make space for a multiplicity of different perspectives that address the needs of children and those assisting them in their various settings, where children grow and develop in the context of their unique needs and challenges. It covers safeguarding children’s rights through parental separation and divorce; families experiencing anticipatory grief; parents struggling with substance use problems; gender incongruence; eating disorders; systemic perspectives on psychiatric diagnosis; children with disabilities; and systemic practice in school. The book will be a source of inspiration, as the purpose is to illustrate the systemic field in constant motion, which encourages, maybe even requires a plurality of theories, perspectives and approaches. But, most importantly, it demonstrates how working with children and families is a privilege.




Qualitative Research Methods in Mental Health


Book Description

This book examines innovative approaches to the use of qualitative methods in mental health research. It describes the development and use of methods of data collection and analysis designed. These methods address contemporary and interdisciplinary research questions, such as how to access the voices of vulnerable populations, understand the relationship between experience and discourse, and identify processes and patterns that characterize institutional practices. The book offers insight into projects that reflect various cultural contexts and geographical locations as well as involve diverse research teams, ranging in their methodology from individual case studies to community-based interventions. Chapters address how research method selection needs to be tailored to specific contexts within which studies are carried out and how synthesizing diverse perspectives of different disciplines – such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, history, and art – make a research endeavor more fruitful. The book offers a clear framework in which to assess the research presented in the book as well as map future directions for qualitative methodology in mental health research. Key areas of coverage include projects that describe research with: • Individuals confronted with critical life events. • Former psychiatric patients. • Individual and couple psychotherapy clients. • Clients in a forensic setting. • Persons affected by psychosis. • Dementia patients. • People living with cancer. • Health care professionals. Qualitative Research Methods in Mental Health is a valuable resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as therapists and other professionals in clinical and counseling psychology, psychotherapy, social work, and family therapy as well as all interrelated psychology and medical disciplines. Chapter 10, “Engraved in the Body: Ways of Reading Finnish People’s Memories of Mental Hospitals” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.




Systemic Perspectives in Mental Health, Social Work and Youth Care


Book Description

Systemic Perspectives in Mental Health, Social Work and Youth Care describes the theoretical foundations of a systemic framework, or ‘systemic lens’, and how the counsellor, therapist, social worker or other health professional can apply these ground principles in therapeutic meetings with clients. The book presents a wide variety of perspectives and interventions, multiple examples, and practical methods, applicable to professionals with a range of experience. A case study covering a diverse family of three generations is presented throughout the book to clearly illustrate systemic perspectives, concepts, and practices. This accessible book will inform and enhance the therapist’s practice and conversations with individuals, couples, parents, groups or networks, even in the presence of psychopathology, multi-stressors or complex networks. This highly readable guide will be essential reading for systemic practitioners of all backgrounds, as well as professionals looking to understand systemic approaches, and for those working in social work, youth care or mental health who want to enhance their current practice.




Families in Motion


Book Description

Dynamics of the family can be seen as a complex set of interrelated cogs, like the dials and wheels within a sophisticated timepiece. Families in Motion: Dynamics in Diverse Contexts is a clear, comprehensive, and contextual view of how the dials and wheels of that complex set work together. With a focus on multicultural competence through diverse contexts and examples, this new text explores the complexities of the family regarding roles, functions, and development in a way that is approachable for students. Grounded in theory and using 40 years of academic experience, author Clara Gerhardt guides readers through concepts of family theories and examines the ever-changing movement, communication, and conditions of both the family as a system and each member within the system. Covering approaches from the theoretical to the therapeutic, Families in Motion will support students in extending their cultural competence while understanding families and their members with greater confidence.




School-Based Family Counseling with Refugees and Immigrants


Book Description

School-Based Family Counseling with Refugees and Immigrants focuses on the practical application of School-Based Family Counseling (SBFC) with refugee and immigrant populations. Emphasizing collaboration, mutual assistance, dialogue, and joint problem-solving, SBFC takes a systems approach that stresses the integration of school, family, and community interventions; the three most important systems that affect the lives of children. Through case studies, the book explains how to design and implement integrated SBFC interventions for refugee and immigrant populations in an explicit manner. The book’s practical, how-to approach is suitable for novice and experienced practitioners alike.




The Routledge International Handbook of Innovative Qualitative Psychological Research


Book Description

The contemporary world currently faces multi-level challenges, including cross-border migration, economic crises and myriad health issues, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Within this wider context of ongoing fluidity, transition and diversity, qualitative research methodologies in psychology are rapidly evolving, featuring innovative ways to examine the dynamic interrelation of societal and psychological processes. The Routledge International Handbook of Innovative Qualitative Psychological Research sets the stage for cutting-edge debates on how innovative approaches in qualitative research in psychology can contribute to tackling current challenges in our society. The handbook depicts innovation in qualitative research in psychology with respect to methodological approaches like visual methods, arts-based research, discursive and narrative approaches, multimodal approaches, and pluralistic/mixed methodology approaches. It addresses a wide range of contemporary, challenging topics at the intersection of the psychological with the societal sphere, like globalization, climate change, digitalization, urbanization, social marginalization, gender and sexism, youth cultures, global mobility and global health risks. The book also includes contributions from various European countries across different fields of psychology, like clinical, health, social, educational, environmental, developmental, organizational, political and media psychology. This is a valuable text for anyone teaching qualitative research courses in psychology as well as in related disciplines like mental health, education and sociology. It will also be of great interest to any qualitative researcher in the behavioral and social sciences wishing to have an overview of the latest developments in the field.




Formulation in Action


Book Description

When people seek psychological support, formulation is the theory-driven methodology used by many practitioners to guide identification of the processes, mechanisms, and patterns of behaviour that appear to be contributing to the presenting difficulties. However, the process of formulating – or applying psychological theory to practice – can often seem unclear. In this volume, we present multiple demonstrations of formulation in action – written by applied psychologists embedded in clinical training, research, and practice. The volume covers a range of contemporary approaches to formulation and therapy that have not been considered in extant works, and includes unique sections offering critical counter-perspectives and commentaries on each approach (and its application) by authors working from alternative theoretical positions.