Låt oss prata om den rosa elefanten — en kvalitativ intervjustudie om familjebehandlarens upplevda hinder och möjligheter samt använda kunskapsformer i arbetet med familjer där en förälder har psykisk sjukdom

The purpose of the study has been to investigate family therapists experience of working with families where a parent has mental illness. More specifically, how they experience obstacles and opportunities in this work and which forms of knowledge that get expressed when they describe their work with these families. The study has a qualitative approach, and six semi-structured interviews were conducted with family therapists working in six different municipalities. As the data processing method, we chose a thematic analysis, and for the theoretical framework, we used Julie Drury Hudson´s theory about professional knowledge in social work, empowerment, and systems theory. The result of the study shows various factors impacting the work: the professionals' approach and methods, the clients' conditions, the population size of the municipalities, coworkers, access to new research and methods, and cooperation with, for example, caseworkers. Concerning expressed forms of knowledge, the result shows that the family therapists, based on Hudson´s theory, use theoretical and empirical knowledge as well as practice wisdom throughout their work, while personal knowledge and procedural knowledge are less common. In the final discussion, we emphasize the need for more research in this area and the need for mental illness to become its own recognized category.