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Family‐Focused Child Therapy in Marital Separation
Author(s) -
O'Gorman Shan
Publication year - 2011
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 - 10.1375/anft.32.3.237
Subject(s) - family therapy , preference , variety (cybernetics) , psychology , systemic therapy , project commissioning , work (physics) , marital therapy , psychotherapist , developmental psychology , publishing , medicine , political science , mechanical engineering , cancer , artificial intelligence , breast cancer , computer science , law , economics , microeconomics , engineering
When marriages and long‐term relationships break down, parents may refer their children and adolescents to therapy for a variety of reasons. While the systemic therapist's preference may be to work with the family system/s, high conflict separation may prohibit such an approach. This article discusses family‐focused child therapy that prioritises the needs of children while seeking to preserve a systemic approach. At a practice level this may involve: (a) individual child therapy, (b) engaging with smaller subsystems including siblings, (c) joint therapeutic work involving child/ren plus parent/s, and (d) any of these combinations; all while continuing to maintain a systemic understanding of the work. The article discusses the challenges of working with children from separated families, where there is restricted or no possibility of engaging with the broader family system.