The Essentials of Family Therapy
Beyond inviting in family members
This workshop is for experienced therapists who value working
with the family context when dealing with individual child and adolescent
symptoms but would like to fine tune their knowledge and skill of conducting family sessions.
It is also useful for those trained in family therapy
who wish to brush up on or expand their skills.
Participants will explore how to deal with heightened anxiety
between family members maintaining neutrality, constructing process oriented
questions, dealing with safety issues, shifting the focus from individual
pathology and giving helpful feedback.
The focus will be on the doing family sessions drawing
on clear systemic principles.
Program:
Part 1
Theory Overview: Understanding a child's / children's symptoms in the relationship context.
The family projection process;
Triangles with children;
Anxiety and circular process.
The numbers challenge. How to include all family members. Skills for engaging resistant members.
How to structure first and subsequent sessions.
The invitation to take sides. How to stay out of triangles without becoming detached.
Creating a collaborative narrative.
Common challenges in conducting a family session:
the defiant child; dealing with younger children distractions; dealing with the defensive parent.
Part 2
Using the presenting problem to open the door to thinking systems.
When to focus on adult issues and when to stay with the child's symptoms.
The creative use of questions that keep a meaningful focus.
Family therapy interventions: reframing; a systems positive connotation;
setting tasks; invitations to responsibility (Differentiation);
using family evidence to teach ideas.
The stance of the therapist: Sharing thinking in connection with the clients.
Avoiding giving directives or becoming the expert.
Pulling it all together: How does change happen in families?
Demonstration exercises and video excerpts will be used to
keep this workshop application focussed.
A reading pack will be included.
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