A commentary on infant mental health knowledge within the training of family therapists

Abstract

This paper considers the role of academic training programs in the integration of family therapy and infant mental health (IMH) curricula. It takes the form of a conversation between senior academic staff of the Bouverie Centre in Australia and the special issue editors. Robyn Elliott and Colleen Cousins are family therapists, trauma specialists, and academics at the Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University. Robyn supervises the development and delivery of the Master of Clinical Family Therapy, accredited by the Australian Association of Family Therapy. Colleen is a psychologist and family therapist and coordinates the Graduate Certificate of Family Therapy program. They are in dialogue here with the special issue co‐editors, Jessica Opie and Jennifer McIntosh. We consider the degree to which current family therapy training holds the infant in mind, and approaches to deepening the future training nexus between IMH and family therapy.

Family therapy and infant mental health: exploring the potential space

“…The trialogue approach -imagined and real -captures the freshness of new thinking about the new father in family therapy (see Lim et al, 2023) and the challenge of bringing infant mental health training into academic teaching of next-generation family therapists (see Elliott, Cousins, et al, 2023). We also hoped to shine a light on emerging evidence-based infant-family interventions (see Philipp et al, 2023;Tissot & Favez, 2023).…”