Commentary: Is Family Therapy Neglecting

the Children?

Catherine SandersClinical Psychologist, Adelaide

Oehlers & Shortland-Jones are to be commended for once again bringing to ourattention one of family therapy’s enduring paradoxes; that family therapy implies thepresence of children yet consistently overlooks them. It is also important to recog-nise, as the authors do, that a thorough understanding of child development is cen-tral to effective and ethical work with children. However, this paper goes beyondthis to assert that child development should be included as part of family therapytraining and in doing so produce more ethically appropriate interventions with chil-dren. This conclusion is based on a comparison of child therapy/counselling coursesand family therapy courses and texts and while the authors accept that some may sayit is like comparing apples and oranges, it may be more like comparing apples andsteak.

Family therapy training is premised on systems theory, as reflected in the Austra-lian Association of Family Therapy (AAFT) criteria for accreditation of training pro-grammes which states that ‘family therapy focuses on the space and the interactionsbetween people and also the importance of context, as the source of health or dis-ease’(AAFT Document for the Accreditation of Training Programs, 10 August 2012). On theother hand child therapy courses teach ‘assessment and psychotherapy of children,adolescents and parents who present with emotional and behavioural difficulties’(Monash University Handbook). One speaks to a particular theoretical perspectiveto explain human suffering at every stage of the life span, while the other offersknowledge and attendant skills to a particular client population and life phase.

This raises the question of selection of students to family therapy courses and theresponsibility of trainers to ensure applicants do have foundational knowledge onwhich to base training. AAFT requires that students are ‘presumed to have knowledgeand a skills base in the social and health sciences or other relevant fields. Familytherapy courses build on these already acquired skills and extend them into familytherapy competencies.’ It should not be the responsibility of family therapy courses toteach basic child development, much as it is not their task to teach an individualunderstanding of the elderly or definitions of major mental illnesses. What isimportant is that all these and much more, including education about disability,physical health issues, men and women, attachment, trauma and the culture in whicha client is embedded, are already part of the student’s knowledge base. This becomesthe bedrock on which family therapy training can then begin the challenging task ofteaching a different and challenging world view. To slip seamlessly between the

Address for correspondence: Clinical Psychologist, Bower Place, Adelaide, SA, Australia. catherine.sanders@bowerplace.com.au

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 2013, 34, 232–233doi: 10.1002/anzf.1020

232 ª 2013 Australian Association of Family Therapy

positivist and linear view of a child development course in the context of trainingwhich aims to teach a systemic perspective is crazy making.

What this paper challenges us to do is address the question of how proper selec-tion is made so trainers can be confident that students have a thorough knowledge ofchild development and emotional and psychological problems of childhood. Wherethis cannot be convincingly demonstrated, the applicant should be required toundertake further study so all students can be assumed to share a knowledge base. Inaddition, teachers should routinely allude to and reinforce this information in work-shops, clinical discussions and live tuition to ensure it is fully integrated into asystems view. Attainment by students of demonstrable competencies in their workwith children and families should also reflect this.

This debate points to a unique feature of family therapy. We all come fromsomewhere, predominantly social work, psychology and psychiatry and often identifyfirst through our training of origin. Looking to on-line biographies of key figures inour field in Australia and overseas their intellectual origins are clearly identified. Salva-dor Minuchin trained as a child psychiatrist, while the Milan team originally practicedas psychoanalytic psychiatrists. In the UK, Bebe Speed is denoted as a psychiatric socialworker, and John Carpenter as a registered social worker and chartered psychologist. Inour own country Laurie McKinnon, Kerrie James, Max Cornwell and MalcolmRobinson all identify as social worker or clinical social worker while Aldo Gurgone andMoshe Lange are known as clinical psychologists and Brian Stagoll as a psychiatrist. Wewear our first profession with pride, as we should do, to enrich and enhance the workwe do as family therapists.

Those who enrol to become family therapists bring a broad and rich knowledgebase, which is a basic requirement to enter the field. A comprehensive understandingof children, their growth and the difficulties they encounter as individuals is one sucharea. The authors are to be commended for once again reminding us of this crucialissue.

Is Family Therapy Neglecting the Children?

ª 2013 Australian Association of Family Therapy 233