#3 November 2007

A word from the President

Welcome to the 3rd General EFTA Newsletter! It is full of news and updates from the 6th EFTA Congress, held in the stunning city of Glasgow, in partnership with the UK Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice. In this Newsletter you will find links to a photo gallery of conference presenters, and to some of the PowerPoint Presentations and papers of the plenary and subplenary speakers, and workshop presenters. If you attended the conference, we hope the Newsletter serves as a welcome reminder of an extremely enjoyable conference. If you were not able to attend, we hope the Newsletter gives you a flavour of the EFTA community at conference! We want to thank all of you for making the conference such a success. We look forward to our next conference in 2010, in Paris.

This Newsletter introduces you to the new General Board of EFTA. I have been re-elected for second and final term as your President. I shall do my best to promote systemic ideas and practice across Europe as a systemic ambassador with other mental health agencies and disciplines, and within the EU commission.

It is now my pleasure to introduce the new EFTA General Board members (click on the name to see the photo and know more about them):

Maria BORCSA, Javier BOU PIQUER, Nevena CALOVSKA HERCOG, Rodolfo DE BERNART, Pier Giuseppe DEFILIPPI, Mony ELKAÏM, Guy HARDY, Julia HARDY, Juan Luis LINARES, Eric LOUIS, Michel MAESTRE, Jean-Paul MUGNIER, Luigi ONNIS, Jacques PLUYMAEKERS, Mina POLEMI-TODOULOU, Kyriaki POLYCHRONIS, Eija-Liisa RAUTIAINEN, Yveline REY, David SKORUNKA, Peter STRATTON, Malvina TSOUNAKIS.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any help, or if you would like further information about EFTA –

Arlene Vetere
President EFTA

EFTA Awards

5 persons awarded in Glasgow

For their outstanding contribution to the field of family therapy:

Boris Cyrulnik (Bordeaux, 1937) is a survivor from the Nazi camps, is a French neurologist and psychiatrist with a deep knowledge of ethology.  Since 1996, he is the director of studies at the school of Human Sciences of the University of Var, and the chair of the research team in clinical ethology at the Toulon hospital.  His work and thinking have allowed the development of the concept of resilience in the field of psychology. (by Juan Luis Linares)

Edith Goldbeter Merinfeld is Doctor in Clinical Psychology.  She is in charge of the Unit of Family Therapy in the Outpatient Service of the Department of Psychiatry, Erasmus Universitary Hospital in Brussels.
She is also Director of the training in family therapy at the « Institute for Family and Human Systems Studies of Brussels », and professor of systemic psychotherapy at the Faculty of Psychology (ULB, Université Libre de Bruxelles).
She is Director of the books series « Carrefour des Psychothérapies » (De Boeck, Bruxelles) and Editor of the Journal «Cahiers Critiques de Thérapie Familiale et de pratiques de réseaux». (by Mony Elkaïm)

Luigi Onnis is a Psychiatrist and professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Rome as well as Director of the Department Service of Psychotherapy.
He was trained by Cancrini, Haley, Watzlawick and Minuchin.
He is author of many papers and books. Among them I will cite: Corpo e contesto, Famiglia e Malattia Psicosomatica and Il tempo Sospeso, all translated into French and Spanish, His works are focused on Psychosomatic diseases and Anorexia.
(by Rodolfo de Bernart)

For their special contribution to EFTA:

We are grateful to Barbara Kohnstamm for all she did during all these years of the process of negotiation between EFTA and NFTOs, which finally produced a renewed structure of EFTA.  Barbara has always worked in a very open spirit with a good sense of teamwork.  With energy and kindness she contributed to the creation of authentic and rich relationships between all the persons concerned by this process towards unity of the systemic model in full respect of the diversity.  Barbara deserves really this EFTA award and this is a good symbol for EFTA.
(by Eric Louis)

Roberto Pereira Tercero (1953, Bilbao, Spain), Psychiatrist,  is  the director of the Escuela Vasco-Navarra de Terapia Familiar ( EVNTF). He has been president of the Spanish Federation of Family Therapy Associations (FEATF) and was one of the pioneers  doing groundbreaking work for the new structure and the younger chamber of National Family Therapy Organizations (NFTO) of EFTA. (by Annette Kreuz)

Pictures from Glasgow

Photo gallery from the congress in Glasgow:
visit the gallery

Memoriam ceremony in Glasgow

In memoriam…

Tom Andersen (by Hans Christian Michaelsen) (PDF 204 Ko)
Ivan Böszörményi-Nagy (by Tamas Kurimay) (PDF 68 Ko)
Steve de Shazer
Jay Haley (PDF 96 Ko)
Insoo Kim Berg (PDF 28 Ko)
Vasso Vassiliou (by Kyriaki Polychronis) (PDF 784 Ko)
Paul Watzlawick (PDF 248 Ko)     in French
Lyman Wynne (by Ivan Eisler) (PDF 172 Ko)

Papers and presentations from Glasgow

Harlene Anderson, USA (Plenary)

The therapist and the postmodern therapy system: a way of being with others
Download papers in English (PDF 356 Ko)

Hubert Hermans, The Netherlands (Plenary)

Self, identity and globalization in times of uncertainty
Download the presentation in English (PPT 292 Ko)

Susan Benbow, UK (Sub plenary)

Wearing purple
Download papers in English (PDF 76 Ko)

Paolo Bertrando, Italy (Sub plenary)

Emotional dances.  Therapeutic conversations as embodied systems.
Download the presentation in English (PPT 1,8 Mo)

Luigi Cancrini, Italy (Sub plenary)

Strategic Family Therapy Concerning Drug Addicts Treated in Therapeutic Communities
Download papers in English (PDF 192 Ko)
Download papers in Italian (PDF 252 Ko)

Katia Charalabaki, Greece (Sub plenary)

Do we need Marx as therapists?
Download papers in English (PDF 120 Ko)

Vladislav Chvala and Ludmila Trapkova, Czech Republic (Sub plenary)

Social uterus as a metaphor for the family
Download the presentation in English (PDF 176 Ko)

Ivan Eisler, UK (Sub plenary)

Knowing what or understanding how: the role of randomized treatment trials (RCTs) in changing clinical practice
Download the presentation in English (PPT 392 Ko)

Jacques Miermont, France (Sub plenary)

Thérapies familiales et schizophrénies
Download the presentation in French (PPT 1Mo)

Peter Rober, Belgium (Sub plenary)

Being there, building bridges, creating space for dialogue
Download the presentation in English (PDF 1,2 Mo)

Jaakko Seikkula, Finland (Sub plenary)

Open dialogues in severe crises: mobilizing the resources of the social networks
Download the presentation in English (PPT 164 Ko)

Peter Stratton, UK (Sub plenary)

Humour, learning and creativity in therapy.  A practical constructivism.
Download the presentation in English (PPT 580 Ko)

Arlene Vetere and Rudi Dallos, UK (Sub plenary)

Systemic therapy and attachment narratives
Download the presentation in English (PPT 84 Ko)

Alain Chabert, France (Oral presentation)

Corps en séance: entre esthétique et perturbations
Download papers in French (PDF 180 Ko)

Recent publications / Publications récentes

La tela di Penelope

Origini e sviluppo della terapia familiare
Francesco Bruni, Pier Giuseppe Defilippi, Ed. Boringhieri 2007
more information (in Italian)

Comprendre et traiter la souffrance psychique

Quel traitement pour quel trouble?
Sous la direction de Mony Elkaïm, Ed. Le Seuil 2007

About the UK

Bipolar disorder

The management of bipolar disorder in adults, children and adolescents, in primary and secondary care (NICE)
Download the presentation (PPT 104 Ko)

News from EFTA-CIM / Nouvelles d’EFTA-CIM

A good balance

During the excellent joint congress of EFTA and AFT in Glasgow, the statutory elections took place and the board of EFTA-CIM has been renewed for the forthcoming 3 years.  A lot of EFTA-CIM members voted.  We thank them.

The new board is a good balance between former and new members (3/7) ; between the sixty-year-old therapists and the younger therapists (4/7) and among the countries having the higher number of individual members (France, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland).

Jacques Pluymaekers will chair the chamber with Pier Giuseppe Defilippi as  secretary and Malvina Tsounakis as treasurer.

In collaboration with EFTA-TIC and EFTA-NFTO, we want to go on with the work already in process to develop harmoniously the sytemic approach and the family therapy within the field of psychotherapies and to make the family therapy recognized by the various European countries.

News from EFTA-TIC

IVth Meeting of Trainers – September 19-21, 2008, Toulouse, France

We hope to have you join us in this event where we exchange our experiences as trainers and learn from each other… and also have an enjoyable time together.

Our chamber now has 136 members – training institutes from 25 countries in Europe.

News from EFTA-NFTO

Objectives and current activities

Our three main objectives :

1. NFTO Vision. We want to take this document established in 2003, by the NFTO Board, and written by Arlene Vetere; with those questions : a) what has been accomplished and what has not ? b) in what sense we could renew such a vision for the next three years.

2. Task Groups : do we keep all these task groups ? Do we want to change the formulation of certain parts of the description of those task groups ? Do we have to propose (an) other task group(s) ?

3. Pursuit of the struggle for official acknowledgement of the systemic model in psychotherapy, in close cooperation with the 2 other Boards (CIM & TIC), and with EFTA chair, Arlene Vetere,  Mony Elkaim (chair of EAP), especially in direction of EU authorities in Brussels, and Jacques Pluymaekers, chair of CIM.

Current activities : rebuilding of part of our web site (thank you David)  – preparation of a questionnaire to all NFTO associations to arrive at a good survey of the situation in Europe of the status of family therapy (thank you Maria) – preparation of the plenary session next June in Helsinki.
(by Eric Louis)

Research

Cognitive-behavioural therapy for severe and recurrent bipolar disorders

People with bipolar disorder and comparatively fewer previous mood episodes may benefit from CBT.
Read the article (PDF 252 Ko)