Basic Family Therapy Skills, I: Conceptualization and Initial Findings

Abstract

This is the first report on a program of research designed to identify the most important characteristics of the beginning marriage and family therapist. The paper first surveys the literature in family therapy, social work, and psychology and finds that, although these factors are discussed for beginning psychotherapists, no set of skills are derived empirically. This study recruited all available members of the American Family Therapy Association (AFTA) and Approved Supervisors of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) who were experienced educators and trainers of family therapists. After nominating the most important generic-type characteristics for beginning family therapists, the participants rated the items, yielding a list of not only the most important skills, but also personal traits of beginners based on mean scores of the ratings. The final section of the paper discusses the implications of these findings and notes the current and future activities of the research program.

The Essential Elements of Successful Marriage and Family Therapy: A Modified Delphi Study

“…As two of the four previous Delphi studies reported in the MFT literature did not include a third round (Avis, 1986;Figley & Nelson, 1989), we decided to drop the third round of the study, thus creating a modified Delphi stud . Respondents did not receive a third-round quesfurther concern existed that even one questionnaire containing 771 items to be rated with three scales would be an unreasonable ordeal for the panelists, we decided to distribute the 771 variables across four questionnaires and divide the panelists into four groups.…”

“…As mentioned in the introduction, the first publication from the Basic Family Therapy Skills Project (Figley & Nelson, 1989) identified the 101 top generic skills that a beginning family therapist should possess. The Delphi methodology used in this investigation was similar to that used by Figley and Nelson. Accordingly, we compared the variables generated in this study to those generated by the panel in Figley and Nelson's study. Their 101 top skills were contrasted with the variables identified in this study.…”

“…By means of the latter approach, the Basic Family Therapy Skills Project (Figley & Nelson, 1989) used expert panels consisting of American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Approved Supervisors and members of the then American Family Therapy Association to identify the foundation skills that beginning family therapists should possess. The expert panel in this study generated nearly 1,100 generic skills.…”

“…The expert panel in this study generated nearly 1,100 generic skills. Ten categories were inductively created from the data, and the 1,092 skills were then colla sed by the researchers into 292 therapist characteristics the study, in which the expert panel rated the importance of these items, Figley and Nelson (1989) reported the 101 most im ortant skills that beginning family therapists should possess. As part oft K e Basic Family Therapy Skills Project, sets of skills or competencies specific to structural family therapy , brief and strategic schools of family therapy , and transgenerational theories of family therapy (Nelson, Heilbrun, & Figley, 1993) have also been published.…”

The Utility of the Delphi Method in MFT Research

“…Furthermore, the researchers indicated that several items endorsed in the literature as particular to reflecting teams were not endorsed by the panelists, and a conceptual lack of clarity existed among the panelists. BASIC SKILLS Figley and Nelson (1989) set out to identify basic family therapy skills that trainers felt were essential to beginning therapists. The researchers used a modified Delphi technique to gain insight into their research question.…”