Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies at IFT

IFT’s president, Yasmin Ala Bhai Brown speaks at EFTA conference

6th Congress of the European Family Therapy Association and 32nd Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice UK Conference

Glasgow, 4th - 6th October 2007

It has taken me some time to put into words my experience of being at this conference but I have put pen to paper, so to speak, and arrived at a short collection of words that I wanted to share.

This joint event brought together two fine organizations Chaired by Barbara Warner and Arlene Vetere who led all of us participants through a most engaging and interesting event.

The range of presenters was extensive with contributions from Europe and probably most of the other continents! No mean feat in itself! This created a unique opportunity to hear about research and clinical practices around the world and to see the way in which systemic approaches were making a contribution to shaping people’s lives.

Each day was introduced by Barbara and Arlene with a dedication made to those members of the therapy world who have made a significant impact on the field and have died in the last two years. This was a most moving and fitting tribute.

The plenary presentations were varied and fascinating. The highlight for me was Kenneth Gergen and IFT’s very own president Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Kenneth Gergen offered us a presentation on The Challenge of Multi-Being. Having read some of his work I was keen to see and hear him present. He did not disappoint. He walked around the stage in a relaxed manner and talked with us in a compelling way. He set forth some ideas about individualistic and relational worlds, inviting us to consider the shift to relational theory and practice which re-conceptualizes the individual as part of the relational process. He called this multi-being with language being generated in relationships, with no private language. The meaning of things is borne out of relationships. He suggested that all of us have the potential to be others through our experience of them and we also carry who we are and have become in relation to him or her. Kenneth gave some lovely personal family relational examples to illustrate his ideas. As always for me this really brought the theory to life.

I could go on but would rather encourage everyone to read some of his work.

I was also struck by the presentation by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Known for her forthright and strident views, she offered some thought provoking ideas. As with Kenneth Gergen, Yasmin used the richness of her own experience in relationships and across cultures to bring a warmth and vitality to her presentation.

Yasmin talked of her experience of living in and between cultures and the changing cultural contexts since the terrorist bombings of late. She challenged practitioners to consider ways in which the internal and relational world of those who move into terrorist activity can be explored, researched and understood in order to make a different future. She recognized that this view of being curious and wanting to understand might not be a common view but her argument about creating a future in which all people can have aspirations and all have a voice was very compelling.

In practice, Yasmin talked of her own attempts to make sense of the current situation by inviting a group of Muslim women to her home and creating a discursive space for them to talk about the effects of the terror in their lives, families and communities. She considers this to be a small but significant step and challenged us as therapists and practitioners to pick up the baton, to make opportunities to create dialogue across cultures and religions. Any suggestions about how to do this gratefully received.

I could say more about the other plenary sessions and the workshops I attended, but I think I might find I write a small thesis! I would like to say, however, that the conference was a huge success and sincere congratulations should be offered to all of those who made it possible.

See you next time.

Barbara McKay

A one day conference offered by the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies - "Working in a Multicultural Context: Implications for Systemic Practice"

2nd November 2007

Keynote speakers: Dr. Nancy Boyd Franklin, Professor, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA; Dr. Anderson J Franklin, Chair / Distinguished Professorship, Boston College; and Dr. Agnes Bryan, Senior Clinical Lecturer, Tavistock Clinic and Adult Psychotherapist, Private Practice.

The purpose of this conference, aimed at mental health professionals, is to create a safe space where participants can explore the challenges of intercultural and intra-cultural work from a range of perspectives.  The conference will address some of the questions raised through the processes of living and working in our multicultural society:

• How do we position ourselves within the contexts of discrimination and powerlessness that constitute the  worlds inhabited by our clients?
• How do we understand the role of faith in our clients’ belief systems, especially if they are different from our own? 
• How do we collaborate with interpreters and bi-cultural workers?
• In which instances do we think that cultural sensitivity is the most important consideration, and when do we privilege the safety of the child or family as the highest context marker?

In addition to the keynote presentations there will be a range of workshops througout the day and you will have the opportunity to attend two workshops (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). Some of the workshop presenters from the family therapy field include Charlotte Burck, Hitesh Raval, Phillip Messent, Jocelyn Avigad, Lorraine Davies-Smith. Gillian Evans, the author of the book 'Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain' will talk about her book in a workshop organised by the book club at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies.

Over a long lunch break, we will create a space for participants to network and exchange ideas around issues they particularly want to focus on.  We will offer lunchtime workshops for interested participants.

Refreshments and lunch will be provided for all participants.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO BOOK A PLACE PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE: www.instituteoffamilytherapy.org.uk OR CONTACT THE TRAINING DEPARTMENT.

TEL: 020 7391 9150. E-MAIL: [email protected] 

Latino Families in Therapy – A guide to Multicultural practice by Celia Jaes Falicov

This was my first book club meeting, so I was looking forward to meeting everyone, discussing the book and hearing everyone’s views. The book had been split into sections for different members to present and I was curious about how we would manage the mix of presentation and discussion. I was particularly looking forwards to the anthropological focus, and how it was related to the clinical focus.

On to the book

The book begins with a very personal introduction by the author which engages the reader. Her style of illustrating points with stories from her own life in particular throughout the book aids understanding. She describes effectively the concept of being between cultures, adrift, “not one culture nor the other”, and not accepted by one or the other.

The author describes the Multicultural Ecosystemic Comparative Approach (MECA) and refers to this throughout the book. One of her main points and perhaps motivation for writing a book in such detail on such a specific group of cultures, was not to generalise about a culture to the exclusion of other ideas.

She describes 4 key generic domains to consider as a framework when thinking about and working with families:

Journey of migration and cultural change,

Ecological context,

Family organisation,

Family life cycle.

These could be applied to many different cultures.

Although the author talks about the importance of the therapist comparing and considering their own cultural maps she does not appear to convey this for herself in the book. She talks about her own cultural map but does not relate this to herself as a therapist.

The book is presented in four main parts relating to the above four domains. Although very readable in parts, the book contains so much detail in others that it makes it heavier reading although not impossible.

The author also talks about the dangers of emphasizing similarities in different families and cultures and minimising cultural differences which may cause the therapist to fall into ethnocentrism – assuming the majority view as the standard of health.

Overall, we felt we liked the style of writing and that it reflected a Spanish style. The inclusion of personal stories meant that we as readers felt a connection with the author and the book.

We felt that the ideas could be applied to any culture

The author did give good descriptions of the differences within the different groups described, but didn’t appear to define what it meant when someone was considered to be Latino as apposed to American.

We talked about the idea that different cultures can be defined in smaller and smaller groups and get more detatched.

The author has not really contributed new ideas to systemic family therapy skills but more to the issue of culture and difference.

She did include in her conclusion the need for consideration of culture and difference to be mainstream issue for family therapists rather than just an add on  - with this we all agreed.

Cathy McIver