Clients' Perceptions of Single Session Consultations as an Option to Waiting for Family Therapy

A single-session program was mailed at Bouverie Family Therapy Centre (BFTC), Melbourne, and results indicated a high level of client satisfaction with the service. Within the review period 53% of clients chose to attend for a one off consultation only, with the option of an ‘open door’ to return far therapy if they felt the need. The BFTC outcome supported findings of Moshe Talmon (an international advocate of the effectiveness of single session therapy), and also of two other Australian agencies whose research was reviewed and compared with the BFTC results.     

Implementing Single Session Family Consultation: A Reflective Team Approach

Setting up and implementing a single session family consultation in a specialist child and adolescent mental health setting, which for a long time has been an organisation and culture that has undertaken a traditional detailed child and family assessment and treatment, brings with it challenges. This paper will look at the history of single session consultation within the field of child and family services and, in particular, child and family services in mental health. It will also look at the development and implementation of a single session therapy program, and associated research on the effectiveness of the program, at the Alfred Child and Youth Mental Health Service. Clinical examples will assist in illustrating the program and its model and structures. Lastly, it will review the research data and compare this with other research data in the field.     

The ‘First Three Years’ Movement and the Infant Brain: A Review of Critiques

This article reviews a particular aspect of the critique of the increasing focus on the brain and neuroscience; what has been termed by some, ‘neuromania’. It engages with the growing literature produced in response to the ‘first three years’ movement: an alliance of child welfare advocates and politicians that draws on the authority of neuroscience to argue that social problems such as inequality, poverty, educational underachievement, violence and mental illness are best addressed through ‘early intervention’ programmes to protect or enhance emotional and cognitive aspects of children's brain development. The movement began in the United States in the early 1990s and has become increasingly vocal and influential since then, achieving international legitimacy in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the UK and elsewhere. The movement, and the brain‐based culture of expert‐led parent training that has grown with it, has been criticised for claiming scientific authority whilst taking a cavalier approach to scientific method and evidence; for being overly deterministic about the early years of life; for focusing attention on individual parental failings rather than societal or structural problems, for adding to the expanding anxieties of parents and strengthening the intensification of parenting and, ultimately, for redefining the parent–child relationship in biologised, instrumental and dehumanised terms.     

Marriage and Family Therapy Students’ Experience with Common Factors Training

With the increased empirical and theoretical support for common factors in the psychotherapy literature, marriage and family therapy (MFT) scholars have begun discussing the inclusion of common factors in MFT training. However, there is very little empirical research on common factors training or how to include common factors in MFT curricula. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate MFT students’ experience with common factors training. Seventeen master's degree students who received training in common factors participated in the study. Data was comprised of participants’ journal reflections and focus group interviews on their experience learning about common factors and how this influenced their work with clients. Participants’ responses to the training were overwhelmingly positive and highlighted the ways in which studying common factors enhanced their confidence, understanding of MFT models, conceptual abilities, and clinical practice. Additional results and discussion about incorporating common factors in MFT training are presented     

Reflections and Learning From an Agency‐Wide Implementation of Single Session Work in Family Therapy

In November 2009, the Bouverie Centre, a centre for training, research, and clinical family therapy in Melbourne, Australia, embarked on a 12‐month trial involving the implementation of single session work as our main model of service provision for all new family appointments. We were interested in evaluating clients' and therapists' experiences of this change in our clinical service delivery. This article discusses some clinical dilemmas that arose for staff in this process, and how they were addressed. Clients' responses to single session work are outlined, followed by a discussion of outcomes of the implementation for our organisation.     

Family Therapy Retention: An Observation of First‐Session Communication

This study examined the relationship between communication patterns and retention among families (n = 18) receiving family therapy. Those that attended 12 sessions were labeled completers (n = 6), 4–8 sessions were middle dropouts (n = 6), and 1–3 sessions were early dropouts (n = 6). Audiotape recordings of the first therapy session were transcribed. The content (positive or negative) and total percentage of communications by the parent, adolescent, and therapist were coded. Completer and middle dropout parents (but not adolescents) showed higher talk time proportions than parents in the early dropout group. Completer families had higher percentages of therapist‐to‐parent communications, while early dropout families had higher percentages of therapist‐to‐adolescent communications. There were no significant differences between middle dropouts and completers in either content or total communications. These findings demonstrate the potential utility of examining within‐session communication patterns and suggest that within‐session processes may determine therapy retention.     

‘Family ideology’: identification and exploration

The issue of ‘family ideology’ has been systematically ignored by a majority of ‘family¹ scholars whilst it has been taken for granted by a minority. The following study arises from the author's attempts to explore the issue of alternative theoretical approaches to the analysis of family life’.² Increasing numbers of contemporary researchers concur in recognising the diversity of ‘family forms’ and the inappropriateness of speaking of ‘The Family’.³ Despite these recognitions many researchers find themselves re-adopting the term ‘The Family’ in their discussions and especially in the titles of their work. For example. Segal clearly recognises that the ‘traditional family model’ no longer reflects the reality of our lives (1983, 11) and yet the title of her book is What is to he done about THE FAMILY? (emphasis added). One reason for the re-importation of the idea of ‘The Family’ may be found in the rather limited nature of previous conceptualisations of ‘family ideology’. With the exception of Barrett (1980), recognitions of ‘family ideology’ tend to be conceptualised in terms of sets of partisan beliefs supporting a particular ‘family form’. Thus the concept of ‘The Family’ is rarely regarded as being problematic in itself, rather attention is paid to the presumed virtues or deficiencies of the particular form of ‘The Family’ which is assumed to be prevalent. Notwithstanding the recognition of ‘family diversity’ or the inappropriateness of the term ‘The Family’, nearly all discussion becomes a straightforward attack upon, or defence of. ‘The Family’.⁴ Only very rarely does analysis avoid this trap and question whether ‘The Family’ really exists to be attacked or defended; thus Collier et al. have asked ‘Is there a Family?’ (1982) and the present author has asked ‘Do we really know what “The Family” is?’(Bernardes, 1948a). The objective here is to identify and explore a specific conceptualisation of ‘family ideology’. The aim is to avoid engaging in attacks upon, or defences of, ‘The Family’ but rather to address the ideological context of such debates themselves, especially in respect of the assumed existence of ‘The Family’. It is hoped that this approach will stimulate a much more critical examination of ‘family ideology’ and the concept of ‘The Family’. More generally, the attempt to conceptualise ‘family ideology’ in this much broader sense is seen as a pre-requisite for the development of an alternative theoretical approach to the analysis of ‘family life’.     

Lessons From ‘The Hitting Place’: Reflections of a Family Therapy Novice

This case study is an account of a post‐traumatic family attempting to come to terms with life after violence, and the effectiveness of family therapy in supporting this transition. The fighting between two young girls had maintained the violence in the family dynamic and their highly anxious adolescent brother remained unable to let go of his protective position and move forward with his own life. The backdrop of the case was a novice family therapist and a mother with borderline traits who found it difficult to keep the therapeutic work within the bounds of the therapy sessions. Despite these difficulties meaningful change could be seen after only seven sessions of family therapy.     

‘Doing things with words’: Sociology and ‘Family Policy’ debates

In examining ‘family policy’, previous work on ‘family ideology’ is developed to demonstrate that ‘traditional family sociology’ has been ‘doing things with words’. In this area sociology, far from being innocuous, has had real impact upon society and may well have been oppressive and deeply reactionary.     

Single Session Interventions: An Example of Clinical Research in Practice

Single session consultations seem to be an efficient and effective way of providing therapeutic interventions at a time of increasing demands for services and shrinking resources. Though ‘one-off’ consultations have a long clinical history, specific interest in their use was sparked by Talmon's (1990) observation that 78% of his clients who had had only one consultation had experienced improvement in their presenting problems. Several Australian studies have supported Talmon's advocacy of this approach (Boyhan, 1996; Hampson, O'Hanlon, Pentony and Cramby, 1994; Price, 1994) but have significant methodological flaws. The present study used a pre–post methodology to assess the effectiveness of single session interventions and explored whether family dynamics impacted on changes in the presenting problem and in level of coping. The results indicated significant changes in both. Family pride or morale was identified as a major factor in positive response to the interventions. The implications for the use of single sessions and for further clinically based research are discussed.     

The Timing of Family Instability and Children’s Social Development

This study extends the growing literature of family instability by investigating the significance of its timing for children’s social adjustment. We find that more than a third of the 1,364 elementary school children in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development experienced some family structure change. Their cumulative level of family instability was associated with multiple indicators of social development at the end of elementary school, associations that were especially strong for boys. These associations were driven largely by the lasting effect of family change in early childhood, demonstrating the significance of early family instability for children’s later social development.     

What Novice Family Therapists Experience During a Session… A Qualitative Study of Novice Therapists' Inner Conversations During the Session

“What do novice family therapists experience during a session with a couple or family?” This is the central question in this article. A videotape‐assisted recall procedure was used to study novice family therapists’ inner conversations. The therapists' reflections were analyzed using thematic analysis. This resulted in a coding system that distinguishes four main domains: (a) reflections concerning the self; (b) reflections about the therapy process; (c) reflections on emotions about the family members; and (d) managing the session as well as own emotions. The study furthermore revealed that during a session, novice family therapists experience strong emotions, such as self‐criticism and irritation. Both emotions may encompass dangers, as well as opportunities for the therapeutic alliance and the process.     

Migrant Women’s Transnationalism: Family Patterns and Policies

Whereas current policies on migration and integration are beginning to recognise family reunion as one of the most legitimate reasons for acceptance by a host society, they in most cases still do not account for the growing trend of feminisation of migration, and even rarely do they address specific migrants’ needs. As currently constituted, the integration bills envision a one‐way process that places migrants into a position where they cannot question, but only accept and fulfil the predetermined requirements of integration plans. But who are the women that migrate, what influence do their transnational experiences have on their families, and how do migration policies envision the reality of increasing transnationalism? This paper focuses on biographical interviews with migrant women in Slovenia as a valuable method to question current integration measurements, applied here to explore female migrants’ experiences in transnational family life and social networks. A gender sensitive approach is applied that critically evaluates the specificities of family reunification policies, which define women migrants as dependent family members. We discuss life trajectories of women migrants, focusing the debate on their own experiences in and with family life. This new empirical material is used to theorise gaps in contemporary migration research. Women migrants’ own reflections of transnational family ties show a great variety of experiences and their narratives are a unique window into motivational, political, as well as legal dimensions of migration.     

Children’s Use of Knowledge of Place in Understanding Social Relations

The article explores how children use different types of knowledge of place to make sense of their relations to other children. The participants are children aged 11–12 in a small town in southern Sweden. The methodology used is place mapping with group interviews. A significant outcome is that the children connect emplaced and spatial knowledge in their efforts to understand themselves and others. Their emplaced knowledge is thus not separated from the spatial knowledge. Another significant result is that the participating children are engaged in an exchange of knowledge of place with other children and with adults.     

‘No Coward Soul is Mine’: A Family Systems Analysis of the Bronte Family

The Bronte family produced three major authors of the Victorian period, only one of whom, Charlotte, lived to enjoy her fame. Since the beginning, this family has elicited controversy, myth and speculation. The authors attempt an analysis of the complex dynamics of the Brontes, including its constituent ‘family cultures’, parent‐child alliances, sibling bonds and rivalries, the traumatic effects of three early deaths, and the strong theme of secrecy and ‘protection’ in a family dominated by Branwell Bronte's instability and eventual alcoholism. The authors speculate on how this family might have presented for treatment, and invite readers to consider how they, as family therapists, might have responded.     

Adolescents’ Daily Experience of Fathers’ Emotional Support and Self‐Evaluation in Korea

Recently, fathers’ role in children's development has been recognized internationally. In Asian countries, similar conversations have emerged but there has been a lack of empirical studies that considered the unique cultural contexts. As a response, based on Bronfenbrenner's process‐person‐context‐time model, the present study examined the daily dynamics and individual differences in the experience of fathers’ emotional support and self‐evaluation in social roles among 283 Korean adolescents in 5th and 8th grade. Through Hierarchical Linear Modeling, within‐person associations between adolescents’ experience of fathers’ emotional support and self‐evaluation in social roles on the same day and the next day were found, with individual differences by grade level and family affluence. Theoretical and practical implications within the relevant cultural context are discussed.     

Infants’ Use of Shared Experience in Declarative Pointing

In this study, we asked whether 14‐ and 18‐month‐old infants use the experiences they have previously shared with others when deciding what to point to for them declaratively. After sharing a particular type of referent with an adult in an excited manner, 18‐month‐olds subsequently found a picture of that type of referent more worthy of declarative pointing than some other picture—but only for that adult, not for a different adult. Mixed results were found with 14‐month‐olds. We thus show that by 18 months, infants accurately track their shared experiences with specific individuals and use this to make communicative decisions. These results also demonstrate that infants sometimes use declarative pointing to indicate not totally “new” things, as in the classic formulation, but things which are “old” in the sense that “we” should recognize them as similar to something we have previously shared.