Creating a Space for Acknowledgment and Generativity in Reflective Group Supervision

Low Treatment Fidelity as an Indication to Switch Interventions: Pivoting From Child-Parent Psychotherapy to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Early Childhood Trauma

Young children who experience trauma and adverse experiences are at an increased risk of developing an insecure attachment style as well as negative physical and mental health problems. These can include internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems, developmental delay, emotional dysregulation, and aggression. Several evidence-based interventions exist to treat young children with symptoms related to trauma, each with different foundational theories. This article presents the case of a 4-year-old boy with posttraumatic stress disorder who was in the middle of a legal fight between caregivers and transitioning between caregivers’ homes. Initially, therapy began with Child-Parent Psychotherapy to address caregivers’ first concerns. Later, the therapeutical approach was switched to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy due to difficulty with treatment fidelity related to caregivers’ symptoms and conflict. This case demonstrates great improvement in treatment fidelity and subsequently problem behaviors after switching to an intervention that allowed to address behavior management shortcomings in a family with ongoing conflict.

Developing Reflexivity through Group Processes in Psychotherapy Training: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Systemic Family Therapy Trainees' Experience

Constructionist approaches in the field of systemic family therapy prioritize reflexivity to promote personal development within training, often leaning on group processes. Drawing from a qualitative study we conducted to address the lack of related research, we present how systemic family therapy trainees experience reflexivity development through group processes. Ten systemic family therapy trainees participated in semi-structured interviews, transcribed and analyzed with interpretative phenomenological analysis. Analysis presented here reports three superordinate themes: Developing reflexivity through challenges and rewards, A conditional reflexive space within the training group, and Encountering the dynamics of identity via reflexive group processes. Our findings suggest that trainees experience reflexivity development as a complex relational process of personal development, highlighting the training group's critical role, nonetheless depending on certain preconditions. The importance of further exploring group processes' potential for reflexivity development in psychotherapy training is underscored.

Defensive patterns in reflective group supervisions at Child Health Centres

Reflective group supervision with infant healthcare workers has been described in several publications. It aims to enhance their ability to help distressed families, and to comprehend and relieve themselves of the distress that they encounter in such work. The ultimate aim has been formulated as an effort at increasing the professional's reflective function. The present article adds to the literature by applying an ego-psychological perspective on the group process and investigating defensive patterns in such supervisions. This approach includes a critical discussion of the place of the reflective function concept in psychoanalytic metapsychology. The article also suggests a Bionian perspective to account for skewed communicative patterns in groups, so-called basic assumptions. Some technical recommendations are provided on the frame in group supervision. They aim to disarm such defenses and facilitate the group participants' possibilities of understanding and thus helping their colleague's problematic relationship with the family. To illustrate the discussion, and to help readers form an image of the supervision process, brief detailed accounts of such work are submitted.

Moving Between Dialogic Reflexive Processes In Systemic Family Therapy Training: An Interpretative Phenomenological Study of Trainees' Experience

In this article, we present a qualitative research study concerning the ways that systemic family therapy trainees experience reflexivity while in training. There is inadequate theorizing and limited research concerning reflexivity in family therapy, particularly from trainees' perspective. In our study, we used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to analyse transcripts of semistructured interviews with 10 systemic family therapy trainees. Here, we present one of the four superordinate analytic themes, entitled "Moving between reflexive processes". Our analysis suggests that trainees seem to experience reflexivity as a multifaceted, dialogic process, which occurs both at an inner and at an outer space and both synchronically but also subsequently to the therapeutic/training process. We conclude by raising implications for family therapy training. Video abstract accessible by clicking here.