Including the infant in family therapy and systemic practice: charting a new frontier

Self Cite

For this special issue, we sought perspectives on the contributions of the infant to their family's development, including recovery from intergenerational trauma and the contribution of the family to the infant's relational security. This special issue features a series of 12 invited papers from a diverse group of professionals, including infant mental health specialists, Indigenous and non‐Indigenous family therapists, academic family therapy teaching staff, and developmental psychology and systemic researchers. The contributions span several methodologies – ranging from curated conversations and qualitative research to conceptual insights, theoretical discussions, intervention reports, and new intergenerational empirical data. Through this editorial, we provide a brief overview of the collective works, spotlighting the invaluable synergistic contributions that infant mental health and family therapy approaches provide, while highlighting the untapped potential at their intersection.

Section: N Fa N T M En Ta L H E a Lt H A N D Fa M I Ly T H Er A P Y: ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Infant Mental Health and Family Therapy: Finding The Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family therapy and infant mental health: exploring the potential space

Opie,

McIntosh

2023

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“…Though IMH and family therapy would seem ‘natural partners’ (Sved‐Williams, 2003), when family therapy approaches overlook the infant, they inadvertently silence the infant's voice and minimise their potential contribution (Opie et al., 2023, this issue). The assumption that infants would be minimal, or even non‐contributors, to family therapy sessions distorts the influences infants uniquely exert (Opie et al., 2023, this issue). Leading infant–family scholars tend to agree that ‘family work is the next frontier in IMH’ and ‘where the field needs to put our collective efforts’ (A. Lieberman, personal communication, 15 August 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Initiating the dialogue between infant mental health and family therapy: a qualitative inquiry and recommendations

Opie,

Booth,

Rossen

et al. 2023

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This qualitative study explores infant‐family mental health experts' perspectives and experiences regarding the inclusion of infants in the family therapy setting. Infant socioemotional development is relational in nature and evolves in the context of both dyadic attachment relationships and broader multi‐person co‐parenting systems. Given this, we sought to understand why family therapy interventions involving families with infants rarely include the infant in a triangular or family systemic approach. Interviews were completed by clinical and/or research experts whose work integrates tenets of both infant mental health (IMH) and family theory and therapy. All interviewees brought at least 5 years of expertise and were actively engaged in the field. Interviewees expressed consistent beliefs that infants have a rightful and helpful place in family therapy approaches. They maintained that infants' innate social drive and communicative capacities position them to make meaningful and clinically significant contributions within family and systemic psychotherapy contexts. Noting that infants have remained on the periphery of these practices, experts advocated expansion and greater integration between IMH and family therapy, while preserving each field's distinctive identity. Experts reported that the interplay between IMH and family therapy fields has been uni‐directional as family systems concepts are embedded within IMH approaches, but few IMH premises are incorporated in mainstream family therapy practices. The disconnect was attributed to multiple factors, including graduate and professional training and theoretical, clinical, research, and sociocultural barriers, which were mutually reinforcing. Experts also identified clinical gains for both infants and family members when infants were meaningfully included in family interventions. Common ground was identified between the disciplines, with a belief that relationally distressed young children and parents are best served by clinical engagement with their network of relationships. Results call for greater collaboration between disciplines to challenge existing traditions and to more fully include infants in mainstream family therapy. Recommendations for integration of family therapy and IMH in clinical, theoretical, research, training, and sociocultural domains are offered.

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

Elliott,

Cousins,

Opie

et al. 2023

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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.