Contrasting Team and Co-Therapy Approaches to a Walk-In Family Therapy Program

Abstract

Policy calls for family-inclusive, single-session approaches to mental health challenges are growing. In response, an online, single-session family therapy approach, Walk-In Together (WIT), was successfully piloted in a small team format in a specialist setting. For wider implementation, including in mental health services, use of a team for WIT sessions was a clear resource barrier. This small qualitative study examined the viability of a co-therapy approach to WIT sessions. For a 4-month period, families were allocated to one of two WIT program formats. Ten completed the two-therapist format, and six the team format. Sixteen family members participated in semi-structured individual interviews, exploring their experiences of the WIT service. Four therapists participated in a focus group about working in the differently sized co-therapy models. Descriptive qualitative analyses consider similarity and difference in the experiences of these two ways of working. For family members, strong similarity of session experience, essential change elements and nature of impact was evident between the two formats. In contrast, therapists showed some preference for the team format, particularly with complex presentations and training contexts, yet fully endorsed a two-therapist format in resource limited contexts. From family and therapist perspectives, essential change was equally achieved in the team and co-therapy formats. The benefit of a WIT session for family members appears to lie more with timely response, transparent engagement and well-contained process and less with the number of therapists providing these functions. We describe ways in which the current study may inform research and support implementation.