Abstract:This article reports research on family therapy interactions. The research uses discourse analysis to explore the ways in which parents construct their reasons for requiring family therapy, the outcomes they desire from it and orientations to their progress. The analysis suggests that parents often position their child as the problem and this is something that is rarely challenged or questioned by the child. Parents express a desired outcome of ‘fixing’ the child and highlight this as what they believe the pur… Show more
“…Anecdotally, many clinical professionals are aware of the limited understanding parents have when attending the service and sometimes even the reason for attending is unclear. Although research indicates that parents expect clinicians to ‘fix’ their children and their problems (O'Reilly ) the parents in our sample showed apprehension, which is perhaps to be expected. The interviewer drew from this and asked about solutions to this sense of uncertainty, with parents requesting more information in advance of attendance.6.…”
Children were able to provide potentially useful opinions of CAMHS. In a time of limited resources it is imperative that the voices of children and their parents are acknowledged in order to improve accessibility and experiences within CAMHS.
“…Anecdotally, many clinical professionals are aware of the limited understanding parents have when attending the service and sometimes even the reason for attending is unclear. Although research indicates that parents expect clinicians to ‘fix’ their children and their problems (O'Reilly ) the parents in our sample showed apprehension, which is perhaps to be expected. The interviewer drew from this and asked about solutions to this sense of uncertainty, with parents requesting more information in advance of attendance.6.…”
Children were able to provide potentially useful opinions of CAMHS. In a time of limited resources it is imperative that the voices of children and their parents are acknowledged in order to improve accessibility and experiences within CAMHS.
“…Although research on this issue is limited, there is evidence that parents and children often do not agree about the problem the child faces, and that therapists tend to align themselves with the parents' perspective (Hawley & Weisz, 2003). Moreover, parents often construct their reasons for attending family therapy as relating to problems in the child and, in this way, position the child as the client (O'Reilly, 2013). Furthermore, children's positioning in family therapy occurs in the context of specific cultural representations surrounding childhood, as well as gendered representations around parenthood and 'appropriate' adult-child interactions.…”
Section: Discursive Approaches To Psychotherapymentioning
This paper aims to highlight the potential contribution of the arguments developed in Burman's Deconstructing Developmental Psychology for exploring the implications of discourses around development for the practice of family therapy with children. Through the analysis of one brief systemic therapy with a stepfamily, formed following the mother's death, this paper examined how discourses from developmental psychology, including representations of children, father, mother, stepmother and family, are implicated in the construction of the problem and in the positioning of the participants. The diverse ways in which the family members made sense of their difficulties and the positions they assumed were shown to be intimately linked with culturally dominant representations of the biological nuclear family ideal and with representations of parents as responsible for their children's difficulties. The position of stepmother in particular was shown to be characterised by conflict and ambiguity, reflecting discourses that idealise motherhood and vilify stepmothers. Moreover, the children were found to be positioned as 'half-members' at several points in the conversation, whilst at other points they themselves resisted calls to a more equal positioning, particularly when disagreeing with the adults' talk. Family therapy, as an institutional practice, was shown to be intimately linked with developmental psychology accounts about childhood, family life and parenthood and Deconstructing Developmental Psychology was shown to provide valuable insights in researching family therapy with children. Based on the analysis, it is argued that paying attention to the social, ideological and cultural context in which family therapy takes place opens up novel ways of conceptualising and researching the process of therapy and allows the exploration of taken-for-granted assumptions about childhood, adulthood, parenthood and the family.
“…In the systemic field, authors such as Roy-Chowdhury (2006) Guilfoyle (2003) and Klaushofer (2007) used discourse analysis to show the potential of these methods in the field of systemic psychotherapy, where the impact of the process as well as the content of talk is so relevant. Since then, this area of interest has been growing and being refined in a significant body of CA work (Muntigl and Horvath, 2016;O'Reilly, 2007O'Reilly, , 2008aO'Reilly, , b, 2014O'Reilly, , 2015O'Reilly and Lester, 2016).…”
Social care settings provide a complex landscape for systemic psychotherapists, particularly in relation to issues of power that are particularly pervasive. Conversation Analysis (CA) was used as a research method to understand the detail of how systemic psychotherapists and parents work together in the safeguarding context. The study aimed to examine the power issues arising, and how they were being managed. CA literature, seen as a reminder of the centrality of ‘talk as action’, is used as a lens through which to present the findings, and the concept of authority as joint action is introduced. The findings of the study showed how systemic approaches, put to use through systemic techniques, can uniquely contribute to safeguarding work in contexts where issues of power prevail, with a particular emphasis on the importance of the concept of self‐reflexivity.
Practitioner points
Notice and work with the complex circular ways that power issues arise in relationships in social care settings
Use the concept of Jointly Created Authority to provide a relational frame for managing issues of power
Revisit the concept of self‐reflexivity which is of primary importance to effective working in this context
Develop understanding of how, using reflexive practice, adjusting responses in the moment can invite agency in clients
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