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.     

Bargaining With Time: An Interview With Helen Pavlin

Helen Pavlin is an accredited mental health social worker and family therapist and accredited family dispute resolution practitioner in private practice in Darwin. She has been involved in social work and family therapy since the early 1970s in Australia and internationally. In 1996 she received the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal from the Australian Association of Social Workers. She is one of the assessors and associate editors for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. In 2007 Helen received the Journal Award for her outstanding contribution to the family therapy field in Australia. She is an accomplished writer and a member of the Australian Society of Authors. Her poems and book reviews have been published frequently in ANZJFT.     

In Touch With People,not Paper: An Interview With Doug Sotheren

Doug Sotheren has been conducting well‐regarded training courses in relationship counseling for over 25 years, outside a university setting. In conversation with his former trainee Cathy Zervos, he presents his personal philosophy of counsellor training, emphasising the need for trainees to be ‘in touch with people’ rather than with theory. His whole course is experiential and based on the concept that training (including the way the co‐trainers handle their own relationship in front of the group) should model the counselling process itself. He talks about his way of selecting students, and his views on counselling students out of the course where necessary. A long‐serving member of the AAMFC and former editor of their newsletter, Sotheren praises the AAMFC for requiring demonstrated competence in its members.     

From Strength to Strength: An Interview with Russell Deal

Russell Deal is the founder and managing director of Innovative Resources, the publishing arm of St. Luke's Anglicare, Bendigo. Russell is a social worker, who for the past 13 years has been a publisher. Strength Cards, now a widely used resource all over the world, were followed by The Bears, and more recently by Koala Company, Name the Frame, Mates Traits and many other resources designed to address a range of situations with individuals, families, teams and communities. Details available at www.innovativeresources.org     

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.     

Working With a Deadly Serious Problem — An Interview With Brian Cade

Brian Cade is an internationally respected family therapist, noted for his work with teams and the one-way screen, for the creative use of metaphor and humour, and strategic interventions. Yet our interview, squeezed into a lunch-break in the middle of a workshop held in Adelaide in September 1984, touched none of these. Instead we talked of the nuclear issue and beneath this discussion ran basic questions all therapists should ask of themselves — What is the appropriate role of the therapist? Should a therapist's own strong values have a place within therapy? And how can the therapist make an impact on society?     

Interview With Michael Kerr

The following article was written by Dr Michael Kerr in response to questions put to him by Barbara Fraser; Linda Mackay and Lu Pease when he visited Australia two years ago. These three family therapists took it upon themselves to prepare this interview in recognition of Dr Kerr's unique vantage point on Bowen Theory and family therapy. Michael Kerr was trained by Murray Bowen in the 1970s and subsequently went on to work as faculty at the Georgetown Family centre. He succeeded Bowen as director of the centre where he has devoted his professional life to the understanding, application and extension of theory. He is the co‐author with Dr Bowen of Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory (Kerr & Bowen, 1988), which remains the most esteemed text on this theory. He is also the editor of Family Systems: A Journal of Natural Systems Thinking in Psychiatry and The Sciences. Bowen's Family Systems Theory grew out of years of research from the 1950s‐1970s, which included observations of inpatient families with a schizophrenic member and using data from Bowen's own interactions with his family of origin (Bowen, 1978). The theory continues to be influential in family therapy with its most well‐known contributions being the process of triangling, the intergenerational transmission of family patterns and the concept of differentiation of self. (Brown, 1999). The following discussion from Dr Kerr brings a fresh perspective on the current applications and developments of this systems theory     

Family Therapy — An Enduring Passion: An Interview With Michael Locke

Michael has been involved in family therapy since 1975. He is a past president of the Queensland Association for Family Therapists (QAFT), and for fifteen years was an assessor for the ANZJFT. During this time he has been steadily training, and conducting his practice. Mike's involvement at Centacare has made him part of one of the longest‐running reflecting team projects in Brisbane. The interview with Michael was playful, unpredictable and free from stifling earnestness. Chris Lobsinger interviewed Michael Locke in late November 2002.     

Working With Families Within Inpatient Settings

This paper examines the family's experience of psychiatric hospitalization. It considers the ways in which the family therapist can help keep the family system intact and involve it in the inpatient treatment process. Family-related and hospital-related obstacles to family involvement are discussed, along with suggestions for dealing with them. Also presented are family problems characteristic of an adult hospitalization population and suggested treatment strategies .     

Giving Voice to the Search for Meaning: An Interview With Ruth Schmidt Neven

Ruth Schmidt Neven is a child and adult psychotherapist who trained at the Tavistock Institute in England. She worked in the UK for over 20 years in child and family mental health services of the NHS. During this time, she was responsible for setting up Exploring Parenthood, an organisation which focused on parenting issues. Since migrating to Australia in 1989, Ruth has remained committed to promoting knowledge and understanding about child and family development in the broader community through her clinical practice, training courses and writing. She is currently the director of the Centre for Child and Family Development in Melbourne.