Presentation of family therapies

In this communication, we will present the foundations and the emergence of systemic family therapy with the Macy conferences and then the school of Palo Alto. We will see how the notions of context, interaction, feedback, communication, learning, etc. revolutionized clinical practices in mental health in the 1950s. Since then, three generations of family therapists have followed one another and have explored family interactions from the point of view of behavior, cognitions and emotional regulation.

Lecturer in clinical psychology, authorized to direct research, she is educational manager of the Master 1 Clinical Psychology at a distance from the University of Paris 8 and of 3 university degrees:

o    the DFSSU “Family Clinic and Systemic Practices”,

o    the DESU “Addiction treatment”,

o    DU “Relationship Clinic and Strategic Intervention”.

Affiliated with the Psychopathology and Processes of Change Laboratory, her research and publications focus on family therapy, processes of change and resilience, emotional regulation, addictions, hyperstimulability and the theory of reversal. In 2009, she published a book with Erès, Changer en famille. Moderators and mediators of change in family therapy.   

She works as a family therapist at the CSAPA Monceau in Paris and develops in her practice a model of family therapy centered on emotional regulation. She is also a trainer in the systemic approach and family therapy.

Family therapy in psychiatry in France today

While Bateson's original article will appear in the United States in 1956, it will be necessary to wait, in France, for the 1970s and the passionate-passionate interest of Dr. Jean Claude Benoit for Bateson's work and the double links, so that " Psychiatry is timidly beginning to take an interest in systemic epistemology and its therapeutic corollary, family therapy. 

Today, we are aware of the impasse and its deleterious consequences, which constituted, within our psychiatric institutions, the fact of working with our patients, "without" their family (and entourage), sometimes even "against" , or even "instead of"!

Nevertheless, how does "the" psychiatry work, today, with the family?

After a brief history concerning the introduction of the systemic approach within care practices in France, between the psychoanalytical tradition and the policy of sectorization, our purpose will be to present, how our psychiatric care institutions integrate (or not) the systemic model , from family interviews , to family therapy , passing through multifamily groups , etc ..... !

Clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, couple and family therapist.

Trainer and Supervisor. Former SFTF Clinical Seminar Coordinator

Member of SFTF and EFTA.

After having met patients and their families for more than 25 years at the Clinique Dupré ( FSEF. Sceaux ), as well as at the Center de Thérapie Familiale Monceau , then within the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM), he collaborates in the teaching of the DFSSU "Family Clinic and Systemic Practices" (Paris 8 University).

Systemic approach and Child Protection

Therapy and constraint seem to be two contradictory terms. Thus, if an analytical reading grid was the almost exclusive reference in child protection institutions and services until the 1980s and 1990s, the analytical posture consisting of "waiting for the request" did not seem to be appropriate in a context where the families, the parents, themselves only exceptionally requested the interventions of the social services!

It is in this context that the systemic approach emerged and developed in the field of child protection. Gradually, the notion of interpellation replaced that of demand and that of need - more particularly the evolving need of the child - took precedence over the concept of desire so often invoked by the Lacanians.

During our intervention, we will recall some important stages which have marked the development in the medico-social field of a systemic approach enriched in recent years by the theories of attachment. We will also mention the clinicians without whom these steps could not have been taken.

A specialist educator by training, Jean-Paul Mugnier worked for twelve years in a child protection service intervening under the mandate of juvenile judges. In 1990 he created with Françoise Domenach the Institute of Systemic Studies which provides both training and family consultations. Under agreement with the department of Seine et Marne, the center also receives families referred by social services. Best known in France and abroad for his work concerning the care of families with violent transactions, he has published numerous works, including The Strategies of Indifference, The Silence of Children, The Child Faced with Suffering of his parents… His latest book, Abuso sessuale in famiglia, quando chi è un fratello was published by Cortina publisher in Milan.