Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy最新文献

Eating disorders (EDs) are associated with significant psychiatric and medical morbidity and carry unique challenges for treatment providers. An ED can become powerful to the point that it controls every aspect of the individual, and these patterns of control can be seen as similar to interactions observed within an intimate partner violence (IPV) relationship. This paper examines the literature on EDs and IPV and attempts to answer two research questions: (1) Does the ED–narrative self relationship share similarities to the victim–perpetrator relationship in IPV relationships? (2) Do individuals living with an ED report themes related to IPV in their discussion of the recovery process? Utilising a phenomenological analysis, online data from individuals living with an ED are analysed. The researchers find three themes and 10 subthemes that reveal similarities between EDs and the narrative self and the perpetrator and victim in IPV relationships. Clinical implications and future research recommendations are discussed.

This study explores an abusive wife's symptoms and risk factors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in a heterosexual relationship. A qualitative approach, using a conceptual cluster network, was used to analyse the family therapy case of a wife abusing her husband. Findings indicate that the wife's IPV-related symptoms included victim mentality, despair, depression, insomnia, aggression, and the desire to divorce the husband. The wife's risk factors were present at the personal, family-relational, and sociocultural levels. This study indicates that therapists counselling violent Korean couples may explore couples' communication styles, undifferentiation of self, transference, the culture of filial piety, and the influence of Confucian culture.

The paper presents a model of care focusing on family emotions in the treatment of adolescent obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is illustrated by a case study. It is concluded that augmenting current treatments by targeting family emotions may enhance adolescent outcomes and improve family functioning. The model is illustrated by a case study, and further systematic research with a larger sample size is recommended.

With a focus on ‘screen and team’ family therapy, we tentatively explore possible practice implications associated with family therapy moving from in-person to online delivery, with the intention of developing questions for further empirical research. By examining some of the affordances and constraints of the online medium in relation to the use of triadic questioning, we set forth a number of the epistemological and ontological consequences of this move. We argue that online therapy has particular features of a dialogical approach and method. We then examine the concept of joint action, the nature of the conversational processes, and the utterance chains that seem to be more likely to emerge when working online. We posit that a major advantage of the move to online delivery of family therapy is the medium’s particular utility for generating more invitational, collaborative, and dialogical practices.

In the last stage of his life, Gregory Bateson worked on a book that eventually became two: Mind and Nature (1979) and Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred (1988). The latter was completed by his daughter Margaret Bateson Mead, after the death of her father in 1980. In Mind and Nature, Bateson compares evolution with the nature of the mental process, concluding that there are patterns that connect thoughts, ideas, and the evolutionary process: they are systems made up of interacting parts that are organized based on relations of similarities or differences. This organization forms a unit (or mind) that has the capacity of responding to information in selfcorrecting ways. Later, in Angels Fear, he wonders about the way in which systems take care of that integrity, and why that is so important. Bateson & Bateson point out that on certain occasions communication is undesirable because it alters the nature of ideas and thus of history, threatening the integrity of the unit. On many occasions what we have learned in our own history and which is manifested in our responses, voices, rites, sacraments, routines and creative acts constitute sacred areas for our lives and therefore we learn not to touch, and keep them in the unsaid. This article reflects on how this understanding of the sacred can have important implications for psychotherapy. These ideas are illustrated with two psychotherapy stories.

This is a personal reflective piece based on my clinical and personal experience in the current environment, which can feel at times oppressive. I situate my critique as an early-career psychologist who holds multiple marginalised identities. Using systemic ideas, particularly coordinated management of meaning, circularity, and reflective teams, I use case examples to illustrate how practitioners can deconstruct power and resist dominant narratives, countering oppressive practice in action. I critique the existing systemic literature in relation to anti-oppressive work and offer suggestions for future research and practice such as holding an anti-oppressive lens and understanding power and difference within the reflecting team.

This paper reflects on the nuanced way in which the therapeutic dialogue establishes a safe space for families to address and give meaning to mortality and the different ways in which they hear, understand, and communicate about impending death. Intergenerational patterns of families responding to and navigating a terminal diagnosis are also considered. Language, the therapist’s own narrative and experience, familial and intergenerational experiences as well as meanings of life-threatening illness are explored. The concept of impending death as haunting is introduced and explored. Adding this ‘existential’ haunting into the formula allows us to consider that impending death offers as an opportunity to ‘unblock’ communication between and within families and at the same time to identify ‘blocked’ communication patterns, thus providing a deeper understanding through an elucidation of rifts between family members and/or developing unexpected possibilities for movement and reconciliation.

Genograms are a key technology for family therapists, but in many respects they remain distinctly underexplored. This is especially the case when it comes to the basic structure of the genogram. Other authors have added other lenses on top (e.g., the cultural genogram, the spirituality genogram, and many others), but very few have explored in depth the core assumptions of the circles and squares which make up a genogram. In this article, I engage with the genogram literature to suggest that these shapes lead the genogram session to proceed in a way which privileges gender identity ahead of all other social graces, through the process of deconstruction. I then consider if a model of genogram creation which uses a universal symbol and then refers to gender later through symbology might allow for greater flexibility and curiosity in genogram sessions. This idea is offered with the intention that practitioners will engage with this deconstruction of the genogram in a variety of different ways.