Family Experience of Safe: A New Intervention for Families of Children with a Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder

McKenzie, Rebecca; Dallos, Rudi; Vassallo, Tara; Myhill, Craig; Gude, Alexandra; Bond, Nicholas

doi:10.1007/s10591-021-09568-8

Cited by 9 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…SAFE consisted of 18 h over six sessions (McKenzie et al . 2020, 2022), and behavioural family therapy involved 11 sessions of unspecified duration (Marshall & Ferris 2012). The least intensive interventions were structural family therapy, which consisted of on average 5.85 sessions (range = 1 to 10) across the four studies (Baum 2006; Ma et al .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Family‐systems interventions for families of people with an intellectual disability or who are autistic: a systematic review

Sutherland

Flynn

Kurzeja

et al. 2023

J intellect Disabil Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundFamily‐systems interventions have been proposed as one way of supporting families of people with an intellectual disability (ID) or who are autistic. This systematic review aimed to summarise what family‐systems interventions have been studied with this population, what evidence there is for their effectiveness and families' experiences of the interventions.MethodsThe review was preregistered on PROSPERO (CRD42022297516). We searched five electronic databases, identified 6908 records and screened 72 full texts. Study quality was evaluated using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool, and a narrative synthesis was used.ResultsWe identified 13 eligible articles with 292 participating families. Most studies reported positive effects of the interventions on wellbeing and family relationships, and families reported positive experiences. However, research quality was poor and there are no any sufficiently powered randomised controlled trials demonstrating family‐systems interventions' effectiveness for this population.ConclusionsThere is a need for higher‐quality research to establish whether family‐systems interventions are beneficial for families of people who have an ID or who are autistic.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… † McKenzie et al . (2020, 2022) both report qualitative data from the same study and so are reported together.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family‐systems interventions for families of people with an intellectual disability or who are autistic: a systematic review

Sutherland

Flynn

Kurzeja

et al. 2023

J intellect Disabil Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nonetheless, we found the fathers in the study much more willing and active in considering these issues (see 3.4.3 above), than might have been apparent from their helplessness when thinking about the child's behaviour in isolation. This was also the experience of McKenzie et al (2021) in their evaluation of a multi-family intervention with parents of autistic children, where comparable problems of feeling their child as 'other', and blamed for their problems were also evident. Far from blaming fathers, such an approach takes seriously their role and influence, supporting them in such a way that affirms both their own and their child's experience in challenging circumstances.…”

Section: Declaration Of Conflicting Interestsmentioning

confidence: 87%

“I am not exaggerating, literally a monster … a Jekyll and Hyde type thing”: Understanding the lived experience of adoptive fathers whose children display violence and aggression

Barrow

Grey

Essau

2022

Human Systems: Therapy, Culture and Attachments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The caregiving of fathers, especially adoptive fathers, is currently under-researched. This study explored the experience of adoptive fathers whose children displayed aggression and violence. Six Parent Development Interviews from a larger study were analysed using an attachment-informed Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Attachment discourse analysis derived from the Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) and Parental Reflective Functioning Scale acted as ‘third voice’ in dialogue with the researchers’ and participants’ to explore the fathers’ experience interpersonally, in the context of their family relationships. Four superordinate themes were identified, with these fathers feeling ‘The Problem is in the Child’, at times sensing themselves persecuted by their child and lacking agency as a parent. ‘Confusion and Comparison’ highlighted the fathers’ sense of helplessness and longing for the ‘normal’ family life they associated with being a biological parent. The fathers also talked of ‘The Mixed Blessing of Feeling like a Father’, expressing extremes of anger but also fondness for their children. Participants engaged in ‘Looking Back’ both at their child’s trauma history and their own history of being parented, which in all but one father, also involved trauma. This left the fathers searching for answers to questions around biological versus relational origins of difficulties, and also pain arising from their own frustrated intention to create a better family life than they had experienced themselves in childhood. Common to all of this was the fathers’ sense of helplessness in being unable to contain or influence their child’s difficult behaviour, that negated or challenged their sense of fatherhood. We suggest a more relational approach that explicitly includes the father’s past and present experience, rather than treating the child’s aggressive behaviour in isolation. This could support fathers in recovering an internal experience of a shared relationship with, and being a father to, their adopted child.

show abstract

“…There is a risk that as researchers we can reinforce a sense of failure and helplessness in our descriptions of these families that they feel about themselves. We have suggested (McKenzie et al, 2021) that there are major shortcomings in services for these families. Often, they wait several years for a diagnosis in the expectation that this will provide assistance for them, help their child to develop and improve their relationships as a family.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two stepfathers and 1 separated family were included so that the different dynamics of these family situations could be considered. The families were part of a research study developing a family-based intervention (SAFE – McKenzie et al, 2021) for family with a child with a diagnosis of autism. All of the families had received this systemic family-based intervention alongside sign-posting for continuing community based support.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anger without a voice, anger without a solution: Parent–child triadic processes and the experience of caring for a child with a diagnosis of autism

Dallos

Grey

Stancer

2022

Human Systems: Therapy, Culture and Attachments

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper offers an exploration of triadic attachment dynamics in families with a child with a diagnosis of autism. The Meaning of the Child (MotC) framework was employed as part of a multiple case study design with 18 parents (9 couples) in order to examine their representation of parenting and relationship with their child. The MotC analysis employed concepts of parental sensitivity, mentalisation and reflective functioning, and a triadic, analysis was added to consider the family relational processes. The findings indicate that the parents were significantly influenced by the use of a dominant ‘autism discourse’. ‘Autism’ in their child presented a severe challenge for them and could foster a sense of disempowerment and emotional withdrawal. Locating the difficulties as reflecting ‘autism’ could also serve to detour conflicts between the parents, and in the parents themselves, trapping the family in unresolved anger or fear that could neither be named nor its impact addressed. Autism discourse tended to rob the actions of family members of interpersonal meaning, rendering conflict fixed and unalterable and requiring them to mask the deep feelings inherent in these relational ruptures. The analysis included an exploration of the parents’ own childhood attachment histories which revealed that the parents were also driven by corrective scripts in wishing to form better relationships with their child than had been their own childhood experiences of parenting. A sense of failure to achieve these added to their sense of disappointment and frustration, but also indicated potential avenues for positive changes and growth.

show abstract

Family Experience of Safe: A New Intervention for Families of Children with a Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 9 publications

References 48 publications

Family‐systems interventions for families of people with an intellectual disability or who are autistic: a systematic review

Family‐systems interventions for families of people with an intellectual disability or who are autistic: a systematic review

“I am not exaggerating, literally a monster … a Jekyll and Hyde type thing”: Understanding the lived experience of adoptive fathers whose children display violence and aggression

Anger without a voice, anger without a solution: Parent–child triadic processes and the experience of caring for a child with a diagnosis of autism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About