From patients to therapists, this course is changing lives | Blogs

Rooms with one-way mirrors, and therapy under the live observation and supervision of a group of therapists might sound like unusual therapeutic practices, and yet are proven and core parts of systemic psychotherapy and training. Also known as family therapy, since the 1950s systemic therapy has been revered for its ability to explore mental health and relational problems within the context of what’s happening for a family or group as a system.

As society grapples with the complex global mental health crisis uncovered by the pandemic, this oft-sidelined form of therapy could offer a way through, using its whole systems approach. We look at one of the UK’s top courses in systemic psychotherapy to find out how.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of patients

“As parents, we were despairing about how best to support our daughter when she started self-harming due to the bullying she was experiencing at school,” says Paul.* “We could see she was becoming more and more distant from us and spending more and more time in her room, which worried us even more about her mental health.”

These parents had tried their best. In the end, Paul says it was family therapy that provided a glimmer of hope.

“We began to see how for the past few months, us going upstairs to her room and trying to get her to talk was having the opposite effect and pushing her more inwards. Not talking to us was not because we were doing such a bad job as parents, but because she didn’t want to worry us. Hearing the different perspectives from the other members of the team gave us different ideas to think about. It helped our daughter to slowly open up with what was happening with her, and helped us listen rather than feeling pressured to fix things for her. I am not saying everything is perfect now, but the conversations in the therapy has given us some guidance about how we can do more of this kind of talking at home.”

Family therapy, also widely known as systemic psychotherapy, explores relationships between a group of people who are connected together (a system) and contextual factors influencing these relationships, rather than solely on an individual’s thoughts and feelings. This system can be a family, a couple, work colleagues or an organisation, for instance.

People often wrongly assume that systemic therapy is only for families when in fact, systemic psychotherapists work with individuals, couples, families across all ages, as well as organisations.

Research shows that it is helpful, sometimes more so than other approaches, for a broad range of difficulties, and has been recommended in the 659 NICE Guidelines for a range of presenting psychological and psychiatric difficulties, including family distresses, anxiety disorders, depression, addiction, chronic physical illness, grief, eating disorders, psychosis, and abuse in children, young people, and adults.

“It takes a relational context. We’re all part of relationships, even if we present for therapy as individuals. We’re all part of wider systems and networks of relationships,” says Shila Rashid, a systemic psychotherapist, and course lead of a popular postgraduate course on the same subject at the Tavistock and Portman’s Education and Training Centre.

“And there’s something about that which speaks to people for working with real-life issues that come up for everybody across all backgrounds, irrespective of class, race, religion, disability, or sexuality. We’re all in relationships, and we can at times benefit and at times suffer within them as well.”

Therapy for the times we’re in

Systemic therapy is often overlooked, particularly as one-to-one therapies now enjoy a revival in pop culture, with frequent TV show portrayals and trendy therapist influencers on social media.

However, that relational context Shila speaks of, gives systemic therapy an edge in dealing with problems that have emerged in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic.

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