Brief Focal Family Therapy When the Child Is the Referred Patient–ii. Methodology and Results

Abstract

Summary The experience of a workshop set up within a Department of Child Psychiatry to foster family therapy and to develop a brief focal technique is described. Details are provided of the first 29 cases. Twenty‐two families engaged in therapy and the referred child improved in 19 (87%) of these cases. Family change was measured using a methodology developed by Malan to assess psychodynamic change in individuals and problems in adapting it are discussed. Eleven (50%) of the engaged famines improved. The pattern of child and family improvement supported the theory that a symptomatic child can be a manifestation of family pathology. A contraindication to the brief focal approach is past or present formal mental illness in a parent. Marital disturbance was frequently covert: this affected the therapeutic plan but was not related to outcome.

The application and utility of a family assessment procedure in a child psychiatry clinic

“…The most complete attempt to develop an assessment procedure is from the Great Ormond Street Group Kinston and Bentovim, 1978). Their approach originates from the brief, focused psychotherapy approach of Malan (Malan, 1963(Malan, , 1975Bentovim, 1979).…”

Family therapy outcome research 1972-8

“…Puckering (1974) has used repertory grids to evaluate outcome, and although the findings were generally inconclusive for a variety of reasons, the index child appears to have improved, and this technique certainly warrants more detailed investigation. Kinston and Bentovim (1978) have described the use of a 'focal hypothesis' as a reference point for therapeutic progress, and as a source of prediction for assessment of success or failure of the treatment. This would seem to be a useful link between interaction and outcome measures.…”

Implementing psychiatric day treatment for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families: a study from a clinical and organizational perspective

“…Subsequently, numerous child psychiatric family day hospitals were created in England [28-33], Switzerland [26], Finland [21] and Norway [24]. The first German psychiatric family day hospital for infants, toddlers and preschoolers (i.e., under six years) was established in 1997 at the Department of Child Psychiatry at the University of Münster Hospital.…”