meaning does the symptom hold for the individual, or in the system?” The problem is not usually located in the individual, but is to be found somewhere in the context that surrounds the individual. Richard: Family therapy is usually a brief and focused interaction – can you tell us why this is the case and also explain what family therapy says about the developmental processes of growth or systemic change? Ged: Well, to the fi rst part, I would say that I see and experience family therapy as a very dynamic therapy where change happens quite quickly, and that’s usually because people have conversations together that they’ve never had before. People say, ‘I didn’t know that’, ‘I didn’t know you felt that’, ‘I didn’t know that that happened’. It is the process, the experience of being heard for the fi rst time and being given the space in a safe environment, to share and hear things never heard before, that has a very powerful and profound impact on people, so they leave the room after 60 or 90 minutes as changed persons, or in changed relationships. They are all there, saying it and listening to it. They can never be the same again with that family because they are all experiencing it together. Sometimes the change to their relationships is so profound and can be absolutely fundamental, and that’s why change happens quickly. Sometimes just one or two sessions is enough because it absolutely gets to the heart of the issue very quickly. As far as developmental processes


or growth in systemic change, what we would observe isn’t anything pertaining to developmental processes in an individual, but we could see development in the communication of the system. This means that a family group as a group might be observed, through the process of the therapy space, to make developmental steps in the kinds of communication that they can be capable of. That is, maybe they can now talk more of the unmentionable topics that have been aff ecting things from the fringes of the family’s shared awareness, or can interact with greater acceptance of and appreciation of each other’s emotional experience, or be more mutual and responsive than before. Richard: In order to achieve that, the safety of the context is a very important part of the frame of the therapy? Ged: Yes, the safety of the context is paramount. In family therapy people need


Context 170, August 2020


to feel free and hold the power to decide what they might want to say or not say. Sometimes that’s because of family secrets, or something they don’t want to disclose yet in front of family members. Other times it might be to do with histories of very sensitive material like abuse or something else they feel shameful about that they don’t want anyone else to know about yet, or ever. So I suppose, this raises a really interesting point about family therapy which might have a connection with group therapy. Richard: Do you notice that the very presence of a neutral observing fi gure has an impact on the family culture? Do families begin to look at themselves as if through the lens of an impartial observer? Ged: It’s a very interesting question, because I don’t always know what they take away, but oftentimes they return and say that they’ve changed things following our conversation and what new perspectives they had opened up to. Many times people have come back to report that [at home] when a confl ict occurs, they now ask ‘what would Ged do? What would the family therapist say if he was here?’ They take me home with them, in their minds. Richard: Group analysis, like many other therapies, may be working most eff ectively when working with transferential material. Does family therapy have a similar concept by which to understand unconscious communications? Either within family communications or with therapists? Ged: Yes, but we didn’t used to. Now, as family therapy has become more established, they are welcome as a rich seam of thinking. Although we may seldom refer to words like ‘transference’ or whatever , we might enquire about events or dynamics in the family that could be shaped by transferential or projective processes. We may consider them for ourselves, and they could be especially useful in helping us to develop an understanding as to how a family system might be functioning or tending to operate. Richard: Group analysis places great value on the phenomenon of ‘free-fl oating discussion’ in the group, akin to the psychoanalytic tool of free-association. The family therapy convention of using an observing/ refl ecting team which discusses their observation of the family group seems like an associative tool that group analytic working can learn a lot from, especially in ‘unlocking’ or accessing less conscious


understandings of relationship dynamics, or confl icts or impasses. Ged: We use refl ective practices, in refl ecting or observing teams, the essence of which is to off er thoughts that may be alternative to the kinds of thoughts or perspectives that the family normally takes up. It’s not just a case of ‘here’s what I heard you say’ but it is about adding new thoughts and associations about the family conversation. These thoughts are off ered in a tentative and speculative way, not declaring truths. We do this in a tone of openness to being inaccurate or wrong, and being disagreed with, and disagreeing with one another. So it can be a really useful way of opening up new narratives to what may be going on in a family, and introducing ideas and questions that can really open up new territory or break new ground in the way that a family group is ready to think and talk about things. That can be really transforming for families, helping them to understand each other’s behaviour or relationship dynamics in a whole new light. Richard: We are living in times in which once accepted conventions, around binary sexual and gender identities for example, or racial and cultural norms, are being challenged and subverted and replaced, in some ways violently. In Britain, concepts of what constitutes a family are changing entirely – going beyond marriage, to the very nature of parenthood even – how does family therapy respond/ adapt to such tectonic societal changes? Ged: This is a huge area of family therapy, and things are changing rapidly. On any family therapy training course, at any level, issues of diversity and equality, and issues related to ‘anti-oppressive practice’, have had a huge presence on the syllabus for a long time, longer, I dare say, than any other therapeutic model that I am aware of. We have an acronym, GRRAACCEES which stands for gender / race / religion / age / ability / class / culture / ethnicity / education / sexuality. These are some of the many potential areas where people may be experiencing some form of oppression or marginalising, or even silencing. I am very mindful, for instance, of being a white, working class, British male, which confers power and privilege upon me, most of which I am unconscious of. However, as a therapist, I need to be


aware of the role that such power confers on me. If I meet with a Muslim family or migrant or gay or lesbian family, or any


31


Groups in family therapy


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68