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The aim of this focus group study was to explore the experiences of family therapists working with family secrecy. Our study highlights that family secrets present important and compelling challenges for family therapists. Furthermore, our study reveals that there seem to be some basic strategies family therapists use in dealing with these challenges in therapy sessions. One basic strategy is that family therapists try to guard their position of being a trustworthy therapist for each family member by avoiding becoming stuck in family secrecy. Furthermore, therapists explore ways to guide the family toward the disclosure of the secret in order to alleviate the toxicity of the secrecy. This highlights the importance of the systemic model and how influential this perspective is in family therapy practice. Some participants, however, have in addition a second strategy they sometimes use: talking with the family about secrecy without aiming to disclose the secret. In the discussion section of the article we reflect on the possibility that in the strategic choices family therapists make conceptual issues might be involved. Furthermore, we stress the importance of further research., (© 2018 Family Process Institute.)

Outcome research highlights the importance of the therapeutic alliance for the outcome of therapy. Meta‐analyses suggest that in family therapy, the therapeutic alliance is even more important than in individual therapy. In family therapy, however, the alliance is more complex than in individual therapy. Through empathy, authenticity and hopefulness the therapist can contribute to an effective alliance. Sometimes during the session, a therapist may experience strong emotions that are in tension with his/her therapeutic aspirations of empathetic listening, authenticity and hopefulness. A therapist might experience boredom instead of curiosity, irritation instead of acceptance, shame instead of authenticity. There is need for some kind of emotion regulation to protect the alliance. Furthermore, as some authors suggest, the therapist's emotions – even the emotions that are first glance seem harmful to the alliance – may also be useful for the therapist. Several case stories illustrate the different ways in which family therapists can deal with their emotions in the session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working with a family from a cultural background other than one's own is considered to be challenging for the therapist. Influenced by social constructionism, the family therapy field highlights the importance of contingency and cultural differences and therapists are encouraged to develop their cultural competency in order to deal with these differences. In this article, starting from contemporary critiques of notions of Western societies' cultural diversity, we address the way in which the cultural competency framework, by highlighting the importance of cultural differences and the therapist's culture-specific knowledge, may underestimate the importance of the social dimensions of the issues involved. Furthermore, highlighting cultural differences may obscure the shared humanity present in a transcultural encounter. In this article, as an alternative to the cultural competency framework, we propose a view of intercultural family therapy in which the unresolvable dialectical tension between differences and universalities is central. Practitioner points The article addresses the challenge of working with families from diverse cultural backgrounds., The traditional framework of cultural competence is critically reviewed., Family therapists should not only be open for cultural differences, but also for universalities and especially for the never-ending tension between differences and universalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this exploratory study is to develop a deeper understanding of the way in which the metaphorical language of therapists evolves in dialogue with a client over the course of a therapeutic session. We first briefly report on a study in which we categorized the metaphors used by therapists in twelve therapy sessions with a role-played client. Then we focus on an intensive micro-analysis of one particular metaphor that was introduced in the session by one particular therapist in the categorization study: the metaphor of a fireman in the family. Our analysis allowed us a detailed look at some of the ways in which metaphorical language opens dialogical space in the session to talk about the position of parentification of the client and about the price she has to pay for this position in terms of preoccupying worries and loneliness. Furthermore our analysis revealed the delicate dialogical nature of the therapeutic process in which, in talk, the therapist takes the client's experiencing into account all the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The question posed in this article is how the therapist should deal with strong emotions she might experience in the session. This question is especially important if it concerns emotions that -at least on the surfacecannot be considered to contribute to a therapeutic alliance. We offer some reflections as preliminary steps towards answering this question and propose that therapists be sensitive to their own experiencing during the session, be careful to monitor the implicit invitations to join the family members in potentially destructive relational scenarios, reflect on the possible negative and perpetuating effects of her interactions with the family, and explore opportunities to proceed with the session in new and more constructive ways. In our approach the therapist's experiencing is seen as a tool that may be used to further the therapeutic process. This is consonant with the view of family therapists exploring the importance for the therapist of holding open a space of reflection, while it also fits with a dialogical approach to family therapy, in which the therapist's task may be described as listening to the stories the clients tell, and making room for other stories that have not been told before. Two case discussions illustrate our ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some authors have argued that certain acts of family therapists—despite their best intentions—may represent a form of colonizing the family. When acting as a colonizer, a therapist is understood as becoming overly responsible for the family and focusing too strongly on change. In so doing, the therapist disrespects the family's pace, and neglects their own resources for change. This paper aims to highlight the need for therapists to be hypersensitive both to the resources of families entering therapy as well as to the impact of prevailing ideologies on their own positioning in the session. The kind of sensitivity advocated here is dialectical in the sense that every family is understood as having potentials promoting dynamism, happiness, and well-being as well as potentials contributing to stagnation, unhappiness, and misery. In this article, using illustrations from clinical practice, we present some ideas for resisting the tendency by the therapist to assume a colonizing position as a professional solver of problems for families. Our main aim here is to redirect the therapist toward connecting with the family's suffering, as well as with the resource repertoire it has developed for navigating and negotiating its way through life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding the complexity of family therapy practice, family therapists do not have a lot of concepts at their disposal to talk and reflect about their experiences in practice. Family therapy literature provides some general principles about the therapist's stance (for example, neutrality, curiosity, and notknowing), but these fail to deal with the full complexity of the relational processes within a family therapeutic encounter in practice. The concept of the therapist's inner conversation offers more promise than these general principles and guidelines, as it addresses the mutuality and shared activity of the therapist's self within the complexity of family therapy practice. In this paper the author first outlines a dialogical perspective on family therapy. Then the spotlight is put on the contribution that the notion of the therapist's inner conversation might make in dealing with issues of the person of the therapist in practice, and especially in addressing the complexity of what it means to be a family therapist in practice. In the last part of the paper a case history is presented that illustrates how the concept of the therapist's inner conversation can help practitioners to talk and reflect about some of the experienced, but unnoticed aspects of their self in therapy practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most authors agree that it is important to mobilize the active participation of children in the family therapy session, a lot of family therapists exclude children from participating because they do not feel comfortable with children. Teaching family therapists to feel more comfortable around children is a good idea, but perhaps it is not enough. In this article, the author reflects on the complexity of the issue of the comfort of the therapist in a session with children and families. In the discussion of the case story of Elly and her mother, practitioners are reminded that the therapist's experiencing in the session can help her to understand something of what goes on in the families she is working with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors used a videotape-assisted recall procedure to study the content of family therapists' inner conversations during individual sessions with a standardized client. Grounded theory was used to analyze therapists' reflections, resulting in a taxonomy of 282 different codes in a hierarchical tree structure of six levels, organized into four general domains: attending to client process; processing the client's story; focusing on therapists' own experience; and managing the therapeutic process. In addition to providing a descriptive model of therapists' inner conversation, this research led to an appreciation of the wealth of therapists' inner conversation. In particular, the authors found that therapists work hard to create an intersubjective space within which to talk by trying to be in tune with their clients and by using clients as a guide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]