Australian Family Therapy: Have We Lived Up To Our Mission Statement?

Abstract

In 1983 the Fourth Australian Family Therapy Conference had the theme ‘Merging the Streams — Integrating Trends in Family Therapy’. In his keynote address Brian Stagoll outlined concerns regarding the nature of family therapy as it was then developing in Australia. This article revisits some of these themes to see where we have come from, where we are heading and which topics continue to be ignored. Evidence is drawn from articles that stood out for me in the Australian Journal of Family Therapy (later the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy) and selected relevant papers from the 1983 conference itself. Finally, I speculate upon possible reasons for the absence of discussion on certain issues, most strikingly: systemic influences upon indigenous Australians, farm families, working with children in families, certain aspects of gender, the systemic implications of addiction; and environmental impacts on families now and for the future. The danger for family therapy is becoming stuck in a closed system that ignores the wider system.

Thematic review of family therapy journals in 2007

“…They also provide a bibliometric survey of the journal. Darracott (2007) reviewed key themes in the past twenty-five years of Australian family therapy.…”

Feedback for the ANZJFT

“…They also provide a bibliometric survey of the journal. Darracott (2007) reviewed key themes in the past 25 years of Australian family therapy (2008: 310-311). Congratulations to Annemaree Bickerton and her team, and to Pat Crittenden and her co-authors; we hope that Alan Carr's publicising of their work in this way will provoke more people to read these papers. Congratulations to Robin Darracott, whose close analysis of the local scene tells us so much about family therapy locally, its strength and its blind spots.…”