Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy最新文献

{"title":"Emotional echoes of family secrecy in childhood: A grounded theory study in a Maltese context","authors":"Rosienne Camilleri,&nbsp;Clarissa Sammut Scerri","doi":"10.1002/anzf.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.70000","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper explores the mutual influence of emotions and family secrets, a central theme emerging from a qualitative inquiry, using grounded theory analysis, involving seven adult children who experienced family secrecy during childhood. Utilising the elements of constructivist grounded theory, the research employed in-depth interviews, which were conducted and analysed simultaneously. The findings illuminate how emotions both shape and are shaped by the presence of secrets, silences, partial truths and disclosures within families where secrecy is integral to their communication patterns. Key themes, such as loss, grief, family loyalties, attachment patterns, family dynamics and fractured relationships, are critically examined, emphasising the profound emotional impact of secrecy within the family context. The study introduces an ‘emotional rollercoaster’ diagram, which not only encapsulates the collective experiences of the participants but serves as a conceptual model for potentially guiding therapeutic interventions with individuals and families affected by such dynamics. This model offers a framework for understanding the complex emotional trajectories from childhood to adulthood within secretive family environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/anzf.70000","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143533351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring family dynamics in living funerals: Rituals to relationships","authors":"Yuen-Ki Tang","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1618","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study aims to analyse how internal family relationships and dynamics are manifested during funeral ceremonies in Chinese society. As an emerging farewell practice, living funerals in Chinese societies depart from traditional death rituals, challenging established funeral paradigms and providing a platform to scrutinise the inner family dynamic and experiences. The study utilises a multidimensional data collection approach, including interviews with the living funeral holders and attending family members, detailed field notes during the living funeral and whole video recordings of the event. Employing narrative analysis, it delves into the family's life experiences as narrated during the funeral, providing insight into the emotional and relational shifts that occur. The findings suggest that while living funerals allow for exploring family roles and emotional landscapes, they also highlight the complex interplay of cultural practices and familial relationships. The study contributes to understanding how traditional taboos around death may be navigated through contemporary practices. Findings underscore the profound exploration of living funerals on family dynamics within Chinese culture. The practice provides a vital lens for examining the interconnectedness and emotional underpinnings of family relationships. Participation engages families in a process of navigating collective and individual histories, aiding reconciliation and affirming familial identities. Research highlights how living funerals powerfully express love, regrets and unspoken words, fostering deeper understanding and continuing bonds before death. Living funerals represent a meaningful contemporary practice, challenging traditional death taboos and offering therapeutic benefits for family therapy and end-of-life care. The paper contributes to the literature by addressing a crucial gap regarding living funerals within Chinese culture and expanding family perspectives on death. By examining how these ceremonies influence familial interactions, the study offers new insights into emotional and cultural dynamics, enhancing understanding of the practice and broader death-related family issues.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/anzf.1618","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143119934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A systems perspective on child abuse and neglect: If we care about the child, care for the birth family","authors":"Leonie Segal","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1614","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A commitment by policymakers and practitioners to the best interests of the child is uncontroversial. The child's right to be with their birth family is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, unless ‘separation is necessary for the best interests of the child’ (Article 9). But how do we understand 'best interests of the child'? Does this encompass only childhood or extend across life? Can 'best interest' be determined by ideology or principles alone? How does the permanency principle interact with best interest? For children exposed to serious abuse or neglect and removed, will ‘locking-in’ long-term care arrangements yield best outcomes in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, parenthood? Should reunification be prioritised? In this opinion piece, I argue that evidence must inform understandings of whether specific child and family support strategies are likely to do more good than harm and that this must consider the child's full life trajectory, including parenting capacity—the driver of intergenerational outcomes—and pay attention to the entire family. In the context of child removal, support and healing for the parent—with the possibility for reunification—will enhance the wellbeing of the entire family, including the removed child and any siblings (including those yet to be born). To achieve the desired response, budget allocations must be aligned with aims. In Australia, budget allocations massively favour child removal over intensive support for birth family, and also favour spending to address the harmful consequences of child abuse and neglect rather than disrupt the harm cascade. A refocus on birth family is critical. Treating birth parents with compassion is a good idea for the child, for the family, for society and the budget bottom line.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"375-387"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143248316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moving beyond moral condemnation of parents: Vulnerable children and families in the context of trauma, neglect and abuse","authors":"Jackie Amos,&nbsp;Jonathon Louth,&nbsp;Anna Clancy,&nbsp;Ruth Jacobs,&nbsp;Liz Coventry","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1616","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;This special issue makes a vital contribution to how we may better understand the contexts of vulnerable children and families and the way intergenerational trauma impacts, influences and manifests within and across family systems. The articles within this special issue carefully challenge a sometimes commonplace attribution of harm solely to individual behaviours. Instead, we seek to shine a light on the role that moral condemnation plays in perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and family hardships.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Parents who struggle to provide good enough care for their children, who may abuse, neglect or inadvertently expose them to harm, are difficult for many people to understand. It is easy for people to respond empathically and with compassion to the children who are harmed, but much more difficult for people to respond to their parents with the same care and consideration. However, these parents were often child victims themselves. When families are embedded in systems of intergenerational disadvantage and trauma, the trauma that flows between generations can powerfully affect the quality of parental care. The emotional judgements that people make in response to severely compromised parenting, combined with narratives that warn against condoning harmful behaviour, can entrench conscious or unconscious moral condemnation, hindering therapists' capacity to provide effective whole-family care.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Within this special issue, we explore the imperative to identify and address moral condemnation, the role of shame in motivating difficult-to-understand behaviours and innovative ways that practitioners have found to respond, without condemnation, to traumatised parents and their children. Effective and meaningful support for vulnerable families requires approaches that address entrenched (mis)understanding and advocate for family-inclusive practices that reflect the lived realities of those involved. Moral condemnation offers little beyond a sense of privileged and positioned ‘knowing’, it should be pushed aside in favour of practices that seek to unpick the intergenerational threads of trauma. Practitioners and therapists—broadly conceived—are in a unique position to pioneer such approaches, challenging atomised views of family dynamics, and how multiple and interconnected factors impact family interactions and parental capacities. Insights from diverse fields and settings beyond traditional therapy offer valuable perspectives for advancing holistic, family-centred care. Several of our contributors within this special issue would not see themselves as family therapists, or even therapists, some are new to academic writing, and this is deliberate. Working with traumatised, vulnerable families and children requires us to stretch beyond our traditional boundaries to find ways to meet the challenges of providing compassionate and effective care.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As an editorial team, we are based at Centacare Catholic Community Services, a leading non-government or","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"371-374"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/anzf.1616","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143248314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Clinician and lived experience perspectives on non-judgemental family care, in working with childhood maltreatment and intergenerational trauma: A pilot narrative review","authors":"Ashley Twigger,&nbsp;Amos Yong Soon Lee,&nbsp;Jackie Amos","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1611","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Non-judgemental care is a widely acknowledged aspect of therapeutic work with children and families. There is limited literature that defines current practices of non-judgemental family care and assesses its implementation within mental health settings. Clinicians who encounter and work with childhood maltreatment and abuse may make moral judgements and potentially ascribe culpability to a child's parents, carers or support network. This is despite understanding that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with the complex interplay of sociocultural factors and wider determinants of health. This pilot narrative review explores facilitators and barriers to provision of non-judgemental care in the modern literature from clinician, as well as lived and survivor, perspectives. A detailed search of the literature was conducted using PubMed, Cochrane Library, Ovid, Embase and PsycINFO databases, with focus on childhood maltreatment, intergenerational trauma and ACEs between 2014 and 2024 and published in English language. Title and abstract screening, then full-text screening, was completed by the primary author and results were identified via informal analysis of themes. Eight studies of clinician perspectives identified facilitating themes of professionals' responsiveness, positive personal attributes and utilisation of strength-based approaches. Clinician-identified challenges included maintaining curiosity in the context of uncertainty and complexity, power differences and unconscious processes. Nine lived experience studies were included, identifying listening and attunement as facilitators. Shame, barriers and inadequate acknowledgement of historical traumas hindered therapeutic engagement. Shame was found to be a key barrier to the experience of non-judgemental care and postulated to influence how clinician interventions are received. The author concludes that non-judgemental care is incompletely understood in practice, with clinician judgements being ubiquitous and diffuse in therapeutic impacts. Future research is required to understand intersubjective therapeutic perspectives and elucidate existent gaps between delivery and perception of non-judgemental care.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"388-400"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143253898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A quiet revolutionary: A conversation with Heather Chambers","authors":"Jackie Amos","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1610","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1610","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many innovations in clinical care are never reported in academic literature, because skilled and creative practitioners are often unaccustomed to academic writing. This means that important insights that could influence practice may not come to the attention of researchers who can generate the evidence that is needed for an intervention to gain wide acceptance. Heather Chambers is one of those gifted clinicians whose insights have often been revolutionary for the practitioners who have worked with her, but whose work still requires formal evaluation. Parallel Parent and Child Narrative (PPCN) is one of the interventions that Heather Chambers developed. It is a dyadic form of therapeutic storytelling, in which moving beyond any moral condemnation and towards therapeutic care is deeply embedded. PPCN focuses on revealing and proving the good intentions at the heart of everything that parents and children do, to counter feelings of hurt, blame and shame. PPCN has been utilised in both New Zealand and Australia, in small geographical pockets, since the early 2000s. There is accumulated anecdotal evidence from its use in private practice: Infant, Child and Family Services (ICAFS) in the Hutt Valley and Wellington, New Zealand; and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and reunification services (restoring children to their birth families, after removal by child protection services) in South Australia. The use of PPCN over many years and in a variety of settings suggests that clinicians who are familiar with PPCN find it useful and rewarding and that families are able to engage with the process. This conversation with Heather Chambers has been included in this special issue with the hope of introducing PPCN to the wider family therapy community and stimulating interest in this approach.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"428-436"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143253899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Whole family support for people in prison: The Trojan Horse of rehabilitation? An interview with Corin Morgan-Armstrong, Director of Invisible Walls Community Interest Company","authors":"Anna Clancy,&nbsp;Jonathon Louth,&nbsp;Jackie Amos","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1615","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article derives from an interview with Corin Morgan-Armstrong, the architect of Invisible Walls, an innovative model of whole-family support for people in prison, their children and families/significant others in the community. This groundbreaking approach not only aims to improve reintegration outcomes for the person leaving prison, but expands the focus to include all family members as equal beneficiaries of support to improve family relationships, their quality of life, and disrupt the intergenerational cycles of disadvantage and trauma in which many of these families are entrenched. The reader is provided with insight into Corin's journey to see beyond the person in prison, recognising him in his role as a father and inspiring a holistic approach which involves family, children and community to support lasting change and improve ‘whole family’ outcomes beyond simply reducing reoffending.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"489-499"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143253593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From moral condemnation to acceptance, compassion and understanding of context: Reflections on practice principles supporting healing in families from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds","authors":"Katherine Caveny,&nbsp;Susannah Tipping,&nbsp;Elham Rezaei,&nbsp;Septime Akimana,&nbsp;Harrison Brooks,&nbsp;Rima Flihan,&nbsp;Suphawan (Saakshi) Khanijou,&nbsp;Magdalena Kuyang,&nbsp;Kathleen McBride,&nbsp;Elizabeth Mitchell,&nbsp;Catalina Paulsen,&nbsp;Ruchi Mangubat,&nbsp;Imani Safi Mufambali,&nbsp;Consy Sakaria","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1613","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Informed by participatory action research methodology, this article adopts a unique collaborative co-writing process providing a means for practitioners of diverse cultural and professional backgrounds to share and reflect on family work, including but not limited to family therapy, happening across a specialist torture and trauma recovery service. Through exploring historical and contemporary ways of working with families at the Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma, an agency providing support to people from refugee backgrounds, some common practice principles were identified as well as key theories and frameworks underpinning collective family work. Guiding principles identified include: the need for a systemic lens, flexibility in service delivery, building safety and trusting relationships, cultural humility and valuing lived experience, recognising complexity and avoiding assumptions, and listening and responding to client and community needs. In moving away from moral condemnation, the article underscores the value of thinking systemically and abiding by recognising each family's unique story and the need for culturally sensitive interventions. Ongoing opportunities to connect over practice are considered valuable for practitioners engaged in different types of family work.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"449-463"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143253594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A map of relational possibilities: Translating theory into practice","authors":"Joanne Walker,&nbsp;Liz Coventry","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1609","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper provides an outline of a novel approach to explain the complexity of human relationships. A map of relational possibilities was developed by the first author to explain complex theoretical concepts to their clients in a private practice. It describes the process of what an infant will do to manage relationally traumatic situations where their caregivers have failed to consistently scaffold the infant's fear management system or meet the requirements to ensure a robust sense of self develops. The map also describes the nature of relationships between individuals with differentiated selves. This paper then discusses how the map manages to bridge the research–practice gap in a unique way using everyday language to describe processes that are familiar to every human in managing complex relational dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"416-427"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143252776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Two voices in harmony: A creative family-led intervention post domestic and family violence","authors":"Mary Jo McVeigh","doi":"10.1002/anzf.1617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1617","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mothers who experience DFV are often at risk of being epistemically harmed by professional discourses that are mother-blaming because professionals often overburden them with unrealistic expectations of protecting their children. In addition, children and young people who experience DFV are frequently at risk of being subjected to epistemic injustice by professional discourses that negate them as knowledge generators. Added to this tangle of epistemic misplacement is the wedge that perpetrators drive between mothers and children so they both cannot see each other survivance wisdom and connection to each other. Family-inclusive/lead therapy that epistemically privileges mothers' and children's survivance wisdom can repair the damage done to them as knowledge generators and to their relationships. This article describes an example of nondeliberative work that highlights family-inclusive/lead therapy has a place in family intervention post-DFV.</p>","PeriodicalId":51763,"journal":{"name":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy","volume":"45 4","pages":"437-448"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143248400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}