Why Am I the Only One You’re Talking to, Talk to Them, They Haven’t Said a Word? : Pitfalls and Challenges of Having the Child in the Focus of Family Therapy
Children with conduct disorders are at risk of being positioned in the family therapy as ‘the problem’. This study describes how the difficulties were talked about and how the child coped in this situation. The results showed: the parents produced symptom-oriented problem talk about the child’s behavior, rendering systemic reformulation of the problem challenging. The negative interaction made the climate unsafe and impaired consideration of the child’s behavior as a meaningful way for the child to become seen and heard. This study enriches understanding of the therapeutic challenge therapists face with high-risk families from the very beginning of the treatment. peerReviewed
‘Can I tell?’ : Children’s participation and positioning in a secretive atmosphere in family therapy
As a multifaceted phenomenon, family secrets affect interaction in the therapeutic system. This qualitative study, applying the multi‐actor Dialogical Methods for Investigations of Happening of Change, explored how children participated and positioned themselves in family therapy in a climate of family secrets. The results showed that the children were active co‐participants in the complex dynamics of a secretive atmosphere, involving themselves in the paradoxical processes of reconstructing and deconstructing the secretive and unsafe climate. In family therapy, a child’s symptomatic behaviour can function as a visible ‘cover story’ for invisible constructions of secrets, preventing sensiti…
"You helped me out of that darkness" Children as dialogical partners in the collaborative post-family therapy research interview.
Applying Dialogical Methods for Investigations of Happening of Change (DIHC), this study investigated how children who had been diagnosed with an oppositional defiant or conduct disorder participated in a collaborative post‐therapy research interview and talked about their experiences of family therapy. The results showed that the children participated as dialogical partners talking in genuine, emotional, and reflective ways. Encountered as full‐membership partners, the children also co‐constructed meanings for their sensitive experiences. However, their verbal initiatives and responses appeared in very brief moments and could easily have been missed. The collaborative post‐therapy intervie…