Dying Well!—Issues For The Living?

Hospice and Palliative Care is a relatively new speciality in Medical Practice and is based on the premise that the family unit, not exclusively the patient, is the focus of care. This paper attempts to outline the development of Hospice and Palliative Care over the centuries and explores the relationship of current practice as the art of medicine rather than science. Through the narration and discussion of a family interaction, the paper draws a parallel to situations common in Family Therapy and poses the need for teamwork and a multidisciplinary approach in Hospice and Palliative Care and in Family Therapy.     

Using Family Attachment Narrative Therapy to Heal the Wounds of Twinship: A Case Study of an 11-Year-Old Boy

This paper describes the utilization of Family Attachment Narrative Therapy with an 11-year-old boy experiencing significant behavioral and developmental problems emerging from his experience of identical twinship and associated parental failure. This innovative treatment model is demonstrated to be a useful tool for changing the child’s faulty self narrative resulting in improved functioning. The critical element of the reworked schema is the perception of self as complete, adequate, worthy and cherished. Family Attachment Narrative Therapy is also shown to facilitate increased parental attunement to the child’s inner state and parent-child bonding. This study highlights the unique developmental challenges facing young twins and the related complexity of the parental role.     

Therapist-worldview matching: not as important as matching to clients

In this essay, we respond to Simon's article (2012). We discuss our view that therapy works best when therapists can match therapeutic interventions to the worldview of clients. We see this matching to client worldview as rooted in research evidence, and we suggest that therapists can practice authentically and effectively using more than one divergent therapy approach. We conclude the paper by pointing out points of disagreement we have with Simon's use of Davis and Piercy's (Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 2007a; 33, 298; Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 2007b, 32, 515) study, a study Simon uses to ground his arguments.     

Australian Family Therapy: Have We Lived Up To Our Mission Statement?

In 1983 the Fourth Australian Family Therapy Conference had the theme ‘Merging the Streams — Integrating Trends in Family Therapy’. In his keynote address Brian Stagoll outlined concerns regarding the nature of family therapy as it was then developing in Australia. This article revisits some of these themes to see where we have come from, where we are heading and which topics continue to be ignored. Evidence is drawn from articles that stood out for me in the Australian Journal of Family Therapy (later the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy) and selected relevant papers from the 1983 conference itself. Finally, I speculate upon possible reasons for the absence of discussion on certain issues, most strikingly: systemic influences upon indigenous Australians, farm families, working with children in families, certain aspects of gender, the systemic implications of addiction; and environmental impacts on families now and for the future. The danger for family therapy is becoming stuck in a closed system that ignores the wider system.     

An Interview with Laurie MacKinnon,PhD, 2012 ANZJFT Special Award Recipient and A Personal Tribute by Kerrie James

In this interview with Laurie MacKinnon, MSW, PhD, the 2012 ANZJFT recipient of the Special Award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Therapy, Julie Beauchamp discusses with Laurie her perspective on family therapy in Australia, the significance of feminism and family of origin work for family therapy, her writing and memorable experiences, collaboration with Kerrie James and her integration of a trauma perspective into couple and family therapy.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Bidge's Mob: Written and illustrated by Gaye Dell Creative Family Therapy Techniques: Play, Art, and Expressive Activities to Engage Children in Family Sessions: Editor: Liana Lowenstein Essential Skills in Family Therapy, from the first interview to termination: JoEllen Patterson, Lee Williams, Todd M. Edwards, Larry Chamow, Claudia Grauf‐Grounds Multi‐Family Therapy: Concepts and Techniques: Eia Asen, Michael Scholz     

Independent Comment on Audio‐Visual and Print Materials

Book reviewed in this article: 101 Healing Stories for Kids and Teens: Using Metaphors in Therapy. George W. Burns Attachment Processes in Couple and Family Therapy. Susan Johnson and Valerie Whiffen (Eds) An Introduction to Marriage and Family Therapy. Lorna L. Hecker and Joseph L. Wetchler (Eds) Experiential Psychotherapy with Couples — A Guide for the Creative Pragmatist. Rob Fisher The Practical Practice of Marriage and Family Therapy: Things My Training Supervisor Never Told Me. Mark Odell & Charles E. Campbell Using Workbooks in Mental Health: Resources in Prevention, Psychotherapy and Rehabilitation for Clinicians and Researchers. Luciano L'Abate (Ed.) The Therapy Triangle: Empowering You with the Knowledge to Heal Emotional Cutoff: Bowen Family Systems Theory Perspectives. Peter Titelman (Ed.) Clinical Applications of Bowen Family Systems Theory. Peter Titelman (Ed.)     

BASIC FAMILY THERAPY SKILLS,II: STRUCTURAL FAMILY THERAPY1

The Basic Family Therapy Skills Project has yielded empirically derived skills important for beginning family therapists. This article reports the results of ratings from the 103-member panel of experts who practice and teach Structural Family Therapy. A total of 100 competencies of Structural Family Therapy were rated in terms of importance on a 5-point Likert scale by the panel. Panelists were also given alternative responses such as “appropriate as a generic skill,”“inappropriate for beginning therapists,” and “don't understand what this means.” Rationale for the approach and results are discussed in terms of the importance of empirically based competencies for the practice of Structural Family Therapy.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Common Factors in Couple and Family Therapy: The Overlooked Foundation for Effective Practice Douglas H. Sprenkle, Sean D. Davis, Jay L. Lebow Family Therapy: 100 Key Points & Techniques Mark Rivett & Eddy Street Systems and Psychoanalysis: Contemporary Integrations in Family Therapy Carmel Flaskas and David Pocock     

23rd Family Therapy Conference; A Student's Perspective

Greetings! I am a family worker in regional Victoria, and a post grad student in Family Centred Practice. Being relatively new to the field I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to review the 23rd Family Therapy Conference, Hobart 2002. This was my first Family Therapy conference, and these are my impressions.     

Exploring: An Essay

Exploring is the optimum mindset for the psychotherapist. From the outset, the project of Family Therapy offered both personal and theoretical support for this position. But have we lost the excitement of exploration in the conservative, correct and individually oriented world in which we practise? And does our style of communication hinder more than refresh us?     

Reading the Feedback; An Interview with Doug Breunlin

Doug Breunlin is Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Family Institute, Chicago and an Associate Professor at Northwestern University. He was formerly the Director of the Family Systems Program at the Institute for Juvenile Research in Chicago, and he is Associate Editor of the Journal of Family Therapy (UK), and an editorial member of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. I first met him in 1975 when he joined the staff of The Family Institute, Cardiff, Wales for a period of three years. I remember those years as the most creative during my time at the Institute (and we also had a lot of fun). At one point, we were joined by a certain social work lecturer on sabbatical from the University of NSW by the name of Max Cornwell, who also contributed much to the creativity and the fun. Doug has published widely and, in 1992, was the joint author of a seminal work entitled Metaframeworks: Transcending the Models of Family Therapy. Doug recently visited New Zealand and also made his second trip to Australia to present workshops on dealing with complex cases using the metaframeworks. While in Melbourne, he gave the second biennial memorial lecture in honour of Geoff Goding. I interviewed Doug while he was in Sydney.     

The Condensed MFT Core Competencies: A Streamlined Approach for Measuring Student and Supervisee Learning Using the MFT Core Competencies

In this article, the authors present a condensed version of the Marriage and Family Therapy Core Competencies (MFT-CC), collapsing the original 128 MFT-CC to 16 using a qualitative research method. Educators, supervisors, and researchers can more easily and efficiently use the condensed MFT-CC to measure student and supervisee learning for accreditation and training. The 16 Condensed MFT-CC are mapped to the original MFT-CC, COAMFTE's Version 12 Foundational Curriculum Areas and the Association for Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards 6 domains upon which the national exam is predicated.     

Independent comment on Audio‐visual and Print Materials

Book reviewed in this article: Narrative Therapy: An Introduction for Counsellors Martin Payne Family Therapy: The Field's Past, Present and Possible Futures Volume 1 Case Studies in Couple and Family Therapy: Systemic and Cognitive Perspectives Dattilio, F. M. (Ed.) Child‐Focused Practice: A Collaborative Systemic Approach Jim Wilson BabyTalk: The Pioneering Book that will Change Childcare Forever Sally Ward 201 Questions to Ask Your Kids Pepper Schwartz Teen Pregnancy and Parenting — Social and Ethical Issues James Wong and David Checkland (Eds) The Fundamentals of Family Mediation J. M. Haynes and S. Charlesworth Family Group Conferences in Child Welfare Peter Marsh and Gill Crow Single Session Family Staging: Breaking Family Spells E. Zawidowski     

The Hypothesis as Dialogue: An Interview With Paolo Bertrando

The following interview was conducted during the 29th Australian Family Therapy Conference, September 29 to October 3, 2008, at The University of Queensland, Australia. Paolo Bertrando, psychiatrist and systemic psychotherapist, was trained in Milan by Gianfranco Ceechin and Lugi Boscolo, with whom he collaborated in the 1990s. His present interests concern the dynamics of systemic therapy, the use of systemic therapy with individuals and the relevance of emotions for systemic practice. Michael Locke works as a consultant in practice development and service delivery systems at Centacare Catholic Family and Community Services, Brisbane. He has worked in both public and community based agencies utilising both systemic and brief therapy orientations with individuals, couples and families.     

‘Therapy Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum’: An Interview With Max Cornwell

Max Cornwell is a psychologist and social worker in Sydney. He edited ANZJFT from 1985 until 1996 and is a former editor of Australian Social Work. He has taught in hundreds of venues in Australia and abroad. In 1980 he co‐founded the Family Therapy Institute, a major influence on the training of family therapists in New South Wales until the mid‐90s. He is an Honorary Life Member of VAFT and has received the Journal Award for services to family therapy.     

The ANZJFT: Snapshots From the History of an Evolving Journal

This article presents a series of ‘snapshots’ of the history of the journal now known as the ANZJFT (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy). While a full, detailed history of the journal from its inception is beyond the scope of this paper, the authors offer glimpses of the journal at key points in its 25‐year history, and from these, readers can reconstruct some of the changes that have occurred, and the continuities in values and attitudes that the ANZJFT has attempted to preserve, throughout its existence. The authors comment, from their own recent experience, on particular dilemmas, which they have faced, and use their own data to update a bibliometric survey of the journal originally carried out by Davis and Lipson (1996).     

Mitigating Intergenerational Trauma Within the Parent‐Child Attachment

Nine‐year‐old Ben was said to hate women. His mother was terrified he'd ‘grow up a woman basher’. This paper describes the work done with Ben and his family at the Hobart Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. We drew predominantly on three therapeutic modalities: Theraplay, Family Attachment Narrative Therapy and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. Our work enabled Ben's mother to navigate the aftermath of her own trauma history in order to heal Ben's attachment trauma.     

Some Central Ideas in the “Just Therapy” Approach

This paper comprises significant extracts from a plenary address on Family Therapy and Social Justice given at the Second Australia and New Zealand Family Therapy Conference, Melbourne, July 1992. It contains the language of the three cultures at the Family Centre, Maori, Samoan and English. The two writers give their perspectives, those of Samoan womanhood and Pakeha (white) manhood, as they address the development of “Just Therapy”. The paper is an unusually subjective account of historical vignettes that proved to be crucial to the original developments of therapy at the Family Centre. Through speech making, poetry, prose and song, the paper outlines the critical cultural, gender and socio-economic contexts central to the “Just Therapy” approach. “Belonging”, “sacredness” and “liberation” have become the essential themes in this unique approach to an anti-colonial, anti-sexist and anti-class therapy. To put it more positively, this paper outlines a history of struggle with issues of equity that have consistently attempted to create a therapy inclusive of women's experience, dominated cultures and low-income families marginalised in the market.     

Audio-Video Reviews

Barbara Knothe, Consultant Psychiatrist, Bouverie Family Therapy Centre, has reviewed two videotapes, produced by Anita Morawetz. The tapes demonstrate Anita's work with two families, seen at the Bouverie Family Therapy Centre. In one tape, Anita supervised one of the trainees on the Training Programme and it is interesting to see how the work of the training group, family and supervisor evolves. The tapes were produced in 1988–1989 and are available from: Bouverie Family Therapy Centre, 31 Poplar Road, Parkville Vic 3052 Tel: (03) 389 2480. The contact person is Ms Kate Gerber, Clerical Officer. There is no charge for borrowing the tapes, although interstate borrowers must pay for postage (“Cash on Delivery” charges). People may borrow 2 tapes at a time, for a period of 2 weeks. Each borrower is asked to sign a form, which will be sent to them, stating they will accept responsibility for the tape and they will respect the confidentiality of the family. Thanks to Anita for producing the tapes and making her work available to other therapists and trainees, for their professional development. Thanks also to Barbara for her reviews and to Bouverie Family Therapy Centre for their generosity and for maintaining an excellent tape library. I would like to encourage other therapists in Australia and New Zealand to produce audio and/or videotapes of their work, on particular areas of interest. David Epston was one of the first therapists to do this — when he produced a videotape called “The Family who loved to stay at Home” which was reviewed by Jim Birch. Many “local” therapists are making recordings of their work and these provide an invaluable resource for training, supervision, consultation and research. If you are interested in producing some material for reviewing and “public” use, please contact me on: (Work) 03 550 130 (Home) 03 898 6983. You may feel overwhelmed by the task, but please don't abandon the idea. Call me and we can talk about this and your ideas. Making tapes for these purposes may not be as difficult or as daunting as you think.