My Therapy Style
My Therapy Style
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Systemic Therapy
Systemic Therapy
My psychotherapy training is in Systemic Therapy (also known as Family Therapy, Systemic Family Therapy or Marriage & Family Therapy). Like most therapists, I will draw on ideas and practices from different therapy modalities as appropriate for each client. However my work is always guided by the principles and practices of Systemic Therapy. While I am trained and have experience working with families and couples, these days I work directly with individuals and groups.
My psychotherapy training is in Systemic Therapy (also known as Family Therapy, Systemic Family Therapy or Marriage & Family Therapy). Like most therapists, I will draw on ideas and practices from different therapy modalities as appropriate for each client. However my work is always guided by the principles and practices of Systemic Therapy. While I am trained and have experience working with families and couples, these days I work directly with individuals and groups.
I have had the privilege to witness the power and positive impact that supporting individuals in their own healing can have on the wider family and beyond when we maintain a systemic perspective.
I have had the privilege to witness the power and positive impact that supporting individuals in their own healing can have on the wider family and beyond when we maintain a systemic perspective.
Systemic therapy understands people to be inherently interconnected and interdependent. Therefore, to understand one person or one relationship we must look to understand the wider context, for example, family, organisation or culture.
Systemic therapy finds meaning by looking at relationships, as all parts of the system are understood to influence one another either explicitly or implicitly. Systemic therapy is particularly interested in the relationship between the individual and the collective experience.
No experience happens in a vacuum whether it is our relationship with our partners occurring against the backdrop of our relationship with our family of origin, or it is the relationship between gender and power, sexuality and religion or power and privilege. Each experience can only be truly understood in context.
Systemic therapy is therefore attentive to the ways our social, cultural, political and religious beliefs and practices, or the lack of them, can shape our individual and collective identities at any moment in history, and the meaning and power attributed to these identities. To borrow from feminism we might say the personal is political.
Systemic therapy is particularly interested in the stories we tell ourselves, often stories that we have inherited from previous generations, and the role context and power have in creating meaning in our lives.
Systemic therapy recognises the subjective nature of human relationships. It notes that which is perceived is inherently influenced by the person perceiving it. This requires the systemic therapist to maintain a high level of self-awareness throughout the therapeutic relationship.
By its nature, systemic therapy is an inclusive model that values diversity as an integral, necessary and inevitable part of life.
Today, systemic therapy remains a popular, effective and evidence-based choice for individuals, couples, families, groups and organisations.
Key Ideas and Experiences Systemic Therapy Explores to Understand Problems, Solutions and Meaning Include:
Key Ideas and Experiences Systemic Therapy Explores to Understand Problems, Solutions and Meaning Include:
- relationships
- the pattern of communication within and between relationships
- the narratives or stories we have been told and we tell ourselves
- the roles we embody
- context
- power
- curiosity
- multiple perspectives
- how we create meaning and
- the lived experience of the client
- resilience
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