The prediction of learning in family therapy training programs*

Research on family therapy training has produced very little data regarding the kinds of trainees that do best in family therapy training programs. This study attempts to provide some rough and preliminary data on that issue. One hundred and seventy trainees, drawn from seven different structural!strategic training experiences, were evaluated as to how much they learned by taking the Family Therapy Assessment Exercise pre- and posttraining. Their performance was correlated using a hierarchical regression analysis with a number of trainee variables such as amount of conjugal family experience, amount of experience doing family or individual therapy, or prior knowledge of family therapy. The results indicate that, as predicted, conjugal family experience was positively related, and prior knowledge was negatively related to performance. Prior experience doing individual therapy was also positively related to performance.     

Systemic assessment of families through individual treatment: a teaching module

A family therapist's training and practice frequently calls for providing systemic treatment with individuals. Family therapy education has not incorporated specific learning experiences to prepare trainees for the difficulties incurred in this application of systemic work. This article describes an instructional module to prepare trainees for conducting a systemic assessment in individual treatment.     

Revisiting Family of Origin in the Training of Family Therapists

Family of Origin exploration has had a controversial history in family therapy training. This article describes a process that aims to integrate family of origin work with skills development Co‐developed by a training group and their trainer, it builds on the existing approach at the Bouverie Centre in Melbourne. Family of origin work is clearly and practically linked with the enhancement of clinical skills, as argued for in the literature. Informed consent trust and safety are taken seriously, and negotiated within the training group. Trainee and trainer stories are included and the authors discuss the learning that resulted from asking trainees to present their family of origin to the group, including the unpredictable personal ramifications that inevitably occur in such processes.     

The Daily Events and Emotions of Master’s‐level Family Therapy Trainees in Off‐campus Practicum Settings

The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) was used to assess the daily events and emotions of one program’s master’s‐level family therapy trainees in off‐campus practicum settings. This study examines the DRM reports of 35 family therapy trainees in the second year of their master’s program in marriage and family therapy. Four themes emerged from the results: (i) Personal contact with peers‐in‐training engenders the most positive emotions during practicum; (ii) Trainees experience more positive emotions during therapy with families and couples in comparison with therapy with individuals; (iii) Positive affect increases over the course of a student’s practicum year; and (iv) Trainees experience less positive affect in individual supervision in comparison with most other training activities. Flow theory offers guidance for supervisors helping trainees face developmental challenges of clinical training.     

Integrating Family Therapy Training in a Clinical Psychology Course

Teaching family therapy to clinical psychology trainees is not common practice in Australian clinical psychology training programs. There is sparse discussion in the literature. Family therapy is an evidence based intervention that complements a diversity of established theories and psychotherapies and would complement the intervention skills of trainee clinical psychologists. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how family therapy training may be integrated into a postgraduate clinical psychology course. The literature on core family therapy knowledge, skills and training methods will form the backdrop to a review of specific family therapy training courses for clinical psychology trainees. This will then be mapped against a consideration of accreditation requirements of clinical psychology courses in Australia and suggestions made for integrating family therapy into their training curriculum. Anecdotal feedback from students provides an initial step toward evaluation.     

LEARNING TO "THINK SYSTEMS": FIVE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

This paper describes five highly structured writing assignments for teaching family therapy trainees to think in systems terms: 1) Analysis of a communication task; 2) Family assessment report; 3) Family treatment plan; 4) Analysis of a marital or family therapy interview; and 5) Family autobiography. The overall training context in which the assignments are given and ways to prepare students for the assignments are also discussed.     

Family Therapy for the Trainee in Family Therapy*

The growth and self understanding of the therapist as a person are considered by most training centres to be a significant part of the training process. This article reports on a pilot project which provided marital and family therapy for trainees in a two-year program. Therapy was established on a contract basis and included individual, conjoint, family intergenerational and small group. Interns and family members responded favorably to the program. Supervisors found the experience enabled trainees to maintain an experiential consistency with a general systems model utilized as the core theory of the training program.     

Developing Family Therapy Skills on a Shoe String Budget: A Peer Supervision and Training Approach

Family therapy skills are an essential tool when working with young children and their families, yet accessing family therapy training and supervision in workplace settings has become more difficult. Skills enhancement may be obtained through formal training in accredited courses, a costly undertaking, in which clinicians most often carry the entire cost for the training. In this paper, we propose that specific family therapy skills relevant to working with families of young children can be developed within a peer group format. The peer training described in this paper is extremely cost effective, easy to set up, specifically tailored to our unique training needs and the characteristics of the population of families we are working with. Further, the training allows us to develop fresh and creative ways of skills acquisition, our own ‘curriculum’, with flexible use of training techniques, depending on our particular needs at a given time. We conclude with some of the disadvantages of the model and propose ideas for future development.     

Bringing It All Back Home: Individual and Group Supervision in Family Therapy Training*

Literature in family therapy training neglects to address the usefulness of individual supervision. Just as family members struggle to integrate needs for autonomy with needs for family membership, so the individual family therapy trainee has individual concerns. Psychoanalytic literature fully recognises the power of the emotional responses of the psychotherapist, but is uncertain how to handle these reactions, especially in terms of the parallel process between psychotherapy and supervision. The integration of individual process-centred supervision with live group supervision and training provides a structure within which to maximize the supervisory experience.     

GROWTH BEHIND THE MIRROR:, THE FAMILY THERAPY CONSORTIUM'S GROUP PROCESS

An earlier paper (Wendorf, 1984) presented the pragmatic aspects and theoretical model of The Family Therapy Consortium, a group set up to provide supervision and continuing education in family therapy. The emphasis was on the development of each individual therapist's competency, the isomorphic relationship between the supervisor, group, therapist, and family levels of the therapeutic system, and the legitimacy of the term "peer supervision." Beginning under the leadership of an expert supervisor hired from outside the group, the Family Therapy Consortium has developed into a peer supervision group with a "floating," rather than fixed, supervisory hierarchy. The present paper charts this development and explores the peer supervision process as it currently works in the Consortium. The focus is on the growth of the individual behind the mirror as therapist, person, leader and group member, and on the growth of the group as a "mature sibling subsystem" no longer in need of outside supervision. Individual and group development are seen as complementary aspects of the same growth process.     

IN DEFENSE OF CASE CONSULTATION: MAYBE "DEAD" SUPERVISION ISN'T DEAD AFTER ALL

Clinical supervision based on "raw data"—the supervisor having direct access to the therapy session via tape or live observation—has become a hallmark of family therapy training. Despite the many advantages of such an approach, it also has limitations. The case consultation approach to supervision provides a different perspective which complements raw data supervision and remedies some of the limitations of the raw data approach. This paper proposes four specific tasks that are best undertaken in case consultation sessions: understanding the "architecture" of therapy, helping trainees build theoretical models of change, understanding the clients'broader context, and understanding the student's broader context.     

The Reflecting Team Process In Training

The process of evolution of a reflecting team in live supervision sessions is discussed. Theoretical ramifications for systemic training of systemic family therapy are explored and feedback from trainer, trainees and client families about the use of the reflecting team is presented.     

Supervising family therapy trainees in primary care medical settings: context matters

The purpose of this article is to identify and describe four essential skills for effective supervision of family therapy trainees in primary care medical settings. The supervision skills described include: (1) Understand medical culture; (2) Locate the trainee in the treatment system; (3) Investigate the biological/health issues; and (4) Be attentive to the self-of-the-therapist. Recommendations are also made to help supervisors become better prepared for the questions medical family therapy trainees bring to supervision.     

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT TRAINEES'LIFE EXPERIENCE

A breadth of previous life experience in marriage and family therapy (MFT) trainees is viewed by many theoreticians, clinicians, and supervisors as a prerequisite for practicing MFT. This study assessed the relationship of trainees' life experiences and therapeutic outcome. We predicted that trainees with more life experience would have better therapeutic outcomes during the process of training than those with less experience. Surprisingly, the results indicated that trainees with greater life experience are not generally perceived by clients as more effective. This finding challenges us to rethink our assumptions about the role of life experience in selecting trainees.     

Reliability and Validity of the Global Assessment of Relational Functioning (GARF) in a Psychiatric Family Therapy Clinic

The reliability and validity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV Global Assessment of Relational Functioning (GARF) was evaluated in consenting participants presenting to a family therapy training clinic. The purpose of this study was to (a) assess whether the GARF could be administered quickly in a marriage and family therapy training clinic, (b) assess the inter-rater and internal reliability of GARF ratings of intake sessions, (c) examine the relationship of GARF ratings to established measures of relationship functioning, and (d) compare GARF ratings to a measure of depressive symptoms. Study participants completed the General Functioning Subscale of the Family Assessment Device (GFS/FAD), the Quality of Marriage Index (QMI), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale (CES-D). After intake sessions were conducted with study participants, GARF ratings were made by an American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Approved Supervisor or Supervisor-in-Training, a therapist trainee, and two observing trainees who had observed the session from behind a one-way mirror. Cronbach’s coefficient alphas and the average intraclass correlation coefficients were both .82 when ratings of the supervisor and two observers were compared and .78 and .79, respectively, when ratings of the supervisor, two observers, and therapist were evaluated. There was significant agreement between GARF ratings made by the supervisor and therapist (but not observers) and scores on the GFS/FAD, QMI, and CES-D. Results suggest that GARF ratings can be made quickly and reliably, especially among raters with greater clinical experience, and are related to measures of relational functioning and depression. Implications for research and marriage and family therapy training are discussed.     

EFFORTS TO INCORPORATE SOCIAL JUSTICE PERSPECTIVES INTO A FAMILY TRAINING PROGRAM

This paper describes the efforts of the faculty of the Family Institute of New Jersey in recent years to develop a collaborative family training program that takes into account issues of gender, race, culture, class, and sexual orientation. We have come to realize how strongly traditional approaches have been skewed in the direction of the dominant culture--white, male, heterosexist, and prioritizing the needs and experience of the middle and upper classes. We have attempted to modify our teaching, supervision, reading lists, and overall training approach to challenge trainees and ourselves to move toward broader, strength-based, and equity-based multicultural perspectives in our training. We describe our vision, how we incorporate it into our program structure, and a few of our training initiatives.     

Training Issues in Family Therapy*

Group versus individual supervision, the family therapy training model, videotape as a training method, and training paraprofessionals in a traditional academic setting are discussed from the authors' experience in conducting a family therapy training program. Editor.