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Family Therapy in the Real World: Dialogical Practice in a Regional Australian Public Mental Health Service
Author(s) -
Hartman David,
De Courcey Josephine
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.297
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0814-723X
DOI - 10.1002/anzf.1088
Subject(s) - dialogical self , family therapy , psychological intervention , mental health , mental health service , service (business) , medicine , service delivery framework , public health , psychology , psychotherapist , nursing , medical education , social psychology , economy , economics
This paper describes the development of a family therapy service in a regional Australian public mental health service for children and adolescents, using a service model of therapy in the family home which draws on the ‘dialogical’ and ‘collaborative’ principles of Seikkula, Anderson and others. The implementation of this service has incorporated training, peer supervision and reflective practice, which has been congruent with dialogical and collaborative principles. Clinicians from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of experience have had a positive experience of learning to work in a dialogical framework. The ‘Mobile Family Therapy Team’ consists of around 20 clinicians (nurses, allied health clinicians, consultant psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists) who work in teams of two or three, and who work with one to four families each. Most therapy is conducted in the family home, and clinicians experience this as rewarding but also challenging. This service model is seen as acceptable and accessible to families. Our experience has been that this form of family therapy has been a useful and effective component of treatment for families with complex, severe and high risk problems who have not benefited from previous interventions. Many of these families would not have accessed traditional clinic‐based family therapy. We see supervision and reflective practice as essential to the sustainability of this service.