NEWSLETTER

Dear EFTA Members,

Here I am writing to you after the summer, telling you what is happening among us. Better not to comment what is happening in the world: wars and destruction, incomprehension and escalations of power and revenge. It needs a lot of trust in living and life not to panic and to continue planning and imagining the future.

We are very busy preparing the EFTA-RELATES 2025 Lyon Congress. We have formed three committees, the organizational, the scientific and the participatory ones. In the last we discuss which contents would be useful for students in order to learn and utilize the Congress at its best.
We discuss what it means to organize an horizontal congress; we discuss about how to highlight the invited speakers without detaching them too much from the others participants; how to organize a communitarian dinner that doesn’t seem too “gala” and instead feels “rock” and filled with music. We need to bear in mind that since we are having an international conference, we need to merge different cultures and therefore accept also values different from ours. We feel the need to define the principle on which we are inviting people; we feel there is something about equity and fairness that we need to follow in the wish of being transparent. We are going to discuss and share the criteria by which we are going to select the proposals that arrive to us. And many other issues that will come up.

Dear Members,

Catholic Easter has just passed, the Jewish one is taking place just now. We have lived the first 4 months of 2024: death, injustices, wars…

Life is challenging each of us, asking to find vital energy within despair. I am finding energy in organizing with the General Board members the next 2025 EFTA CONGRESS: CONFLUENCES AND CONTROVERSIES IN SYSTEMIC PRACTICE, RESEARCH AND THEORY.

It will be held in Lyon (France) at the end of August (27-30^th 2025 ). This time there will be an added value, the fact that we are partnering with RELATES, the South America meta- society with all the professionals from different countries and their experience with larger contexts.  We will therefore have different voices that confluence together, with no fear of controversies: different opinions and points of view.
I hope we will succeed in organizing very concrete and pragmatic meetings that focalize on the practical process of intervening both in psychotherapy and in Institutional work, on both levels of intervention, primary care and specialist second order interventions.
I hope you will find within you the curiosity to attend and participate actively – and I underline actively –  with your own voice. We are going to leave space for reflection, for dancing together.  For questioning and getting surprised.

Dear Friends,

What a world! This latest horrid terrorist attack by Hamas is enhancing the extreme positions that lead to more violence. I think we all hope in the cessation of fire not to enhance more circles of war. I feel grief for both Israelis and Palestinians and ask for no more violence in my name. Our hearts are bleeding. I hope you had a refreshing summer in order to have a lot of energy to tolerate what is happening around us and be able to continue working. I personally spent August in the countryside writing and reading; I am reacting with sorrow to what is happening: just one hour ago (16 October) there has been a new terrorist attack from ISIS in Brussels.

Can I say that I am a little bit disappointed? I hoped you would have answered plenty, sending gossips about stimulating encounters with masters. Instead from the EFTA members I received only few contributions. Are you not interested in this project Kyriaki and I care so much about? Do you not recall any witty encounters with someone you feel has been a systemic master? Don’t you like the concept of someone “above” others with the definition of “master”? Are you just lazy towards EFTA or you don’t care enough? We have published the first comments arrived that I have appreciated very much; I really hope you will read them with interest and find the inspiration to send us your memories. In the meanwhile go and take a look: HERE

Dear Friends,

Time goes so fast that it seems yesterday that I wrote the last newsletter, it was the end of 2022. I hope you are well and in a good state of mind.

I am trying to make us become an active community that exchanges ideas, questions and solutions; despite my good intentions, I myself get caught in daily activities and am sometimes unable of proposing new initiatives: time is the new luxury and we are constantly running after our shadow. Not good attitude in order to cultivate our psychic capacities and develop a spiritual attitude, two characteristics that are fundamental in these rough times.

Kyriaki Polychroni and myself are launching “Gossips  in front of the family”, you will receive a mail with instructions and I would love you to participate. The intent is to give continuity to a story that comes before us, crosses us and continues after us: it is precious to have memories and to share them. The young generation did not have the privilege to meet personally the pioneers of our field, those of us who met many masters can offer their memories as a gift.

 

Dear Members,

This is the last newsletter of 2022, with the desire to summarize what happened in this year and to send you the EFTA wishes for Happy holidays and a 2023 serene and full of curiosity.

What happened in the world around us? Terrible things and nice ones. The invasion of Ukraine, many wars, rising inflation, ecological disasters, the holocaust of migrants in the Mediterranean sea, threat of Iran hanging, mental health disturbances transversal to a wide population, in the States the decision of the Supreme Court to undo the right to abortion (when needed), are just some of the adversities we have been facing. As good news are concerned we can talk about increased rights of LGBTQUIA+ and same sex marriages, the courage of the Iranian population and the fact that we are here reading this note. Gratitude for being alive and in health needs to unite us.

Greetings to all of our EFTA members,

As I write this the humanitarian catastrophe following the Russian invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine is building. The many civilian victims of indiscriminate bombardments of residential areas, health care settings and civilian infrastructure are dealing with the lack of the right to safety dignity and the protection of their human rights. We know as systemic therapists that the impact of war leads to trauma within families that can echo through generations to come. Speaking truth to power is not easy it means taking a stand, the EFTA General board has done this and condemned the aggression of the Russian state and it leader Vladimir Putin in the declaration that we agreed in Barcelona. In the wider European sphere of psychotherapy, The European Association for Psychotherapy has removed the voting rights of the national Russian Psychotherapeutic Association. We don’t but we have reached out to the national Ukrainian association of family therapy, they are not members of EFTA, but in a spirit of solidarity we have offered to facilitate contact for family therapy students, trainers and practitioners that may have to flee Ukraine with the family therapy infrastructure in the destination country. We are supporting the initiative of our General Treasurer Michel Maestre who has created an organisation to provide psychological support online to those in Ukraine. The information on the service can be accessed HERE.

Dear EFTA community,

Summer has arrived and our thoughts turn to the hope of meeting more of our family, friends and colleagues in a safe way. To keep our professional linkages alive and vibrant we are sending this newsletter with information on upcoming events, publications, news from our boards and most importantly our upcoming EFTA General Assembly.

This year our General Assembly will take place on Zoom. We are hoping that you will join us.  You can find the Agenda and documents related to the EFTA General Assembly which will be held via Zoom on 26th June 2 – 4 pm (CET) HERE. PLEASE REGISTER TO PARTICIPATE

The plans for the EFTA conference in 2022 are progressing and we hope to have the conference website in place shortly. The conference will take place in Ljubljana Slovenia from 7-10 September 2022.

In this newsletter we mark the passing of Humberto Maturana, biologist, philosopher and writer who died the 6th of May with a reflection from Umberta Telfener.

Dear Community of EFTA,
This extraordinary year is drawing to a close and we are looking to 2021 with hope and eagerness.
In this newsletter you will find the news from our boards, information from our community on research, writing and new initiatives.
We are as a board grieving for our dear Mony Elkaim and have included our tribute developed with input from all three boards within this newsletter.
Our board has coped with some difficult transitions this year, not only related to the pandemic. This has shown us that at times it takes courage and trust to remain in dialogue when we have held such different views. I want to welcome Juan Antonio Abeijon as the new president of EFTA CIM and wish him well for his term.
I finish with the good wishes of the EFTA board to all of our community and some words from a tweet by Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney: “If we can winter this one out, we can summer anywhere.”

EFTA response to the world pandemic of Covid-19
The spread of covid-19 across our planet is unstoppable. The virus knows no borders and we have no immunity to it, we can slow its spread in the hopes that treatments and vaccines may be developed that will protect us in the future. While we wait for this to happen, we have a choice, we can react with fear and suspicion to isolate and close in on ourselves, or we can find new ways to promote resilience and connectedness even while keeping our distance. While most of our clinics, universities and training institutes may be closed or closing for a period of time to slow the spread of the virus I urge you to connect in other ways. I will from today make the EFTA website available to our community, send us your stories, cartoons, comments and thoughts and we will upload them to the EFTA website.

Renewal and change within EFTA
Dear EFTA Colleagues and friends,
The three year cycle of the EFTA board and chamber boards elected in Athens in 2016 has come to an end. We have a new Board of EFTA and new boards for each chamber. I am very honoured to have been elected to serve as the EFTA president for the term 2019 -2022. What a month it has been!
We welcomed 1,600 participants to the Conference in Naples. We had four days filled with scientific exchange in the form of keynotes, round tables, symposia, invited dialogues, workshops, oral communications, posters and a magical dinner overlooking the bay of Naples under a full moon. We conducted a world federation meeting, the EFTA general assembly, EFTA award ceremony and EFTA chamber elections as part of a very busy schedule over our four days in Naples.
We have to thank our two hardworking conference companies Symvoli and EP Congressi for their work in the  preparation and on the ground delivery of the conference.  Our thanks also to  the combined scientific and organising committees of EFTA and SIPPR, the Task Force group of EFTA and SIPPR who worked so hard in a very short timeframe to make this conference a reality and also the secretariats of EFTA and the three chamber secretaries of TIC, CIM and NFTO  who successfully galvanised  the international membership of EFTA to attend the conference.

Dear EFTA colleagues and friends,

I am writing this at a time of great hope and despair, the hope for the future is that one 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl can inspire over a million and a half schoolchildren in 100 countries to strike for the climate of the earth on Fridays for Future. The majority of the children striking, and marching do not have the possibility to vote. In a previous newsletter our past president Professor Maria Borcsa called for systemic and family therapists to use their voting power to elect politicians who espoused the values of inclusivity, tolerance and diversity. I am echoing that call and adding use your voting power in the upcoming European elections to do what our young people are asking of us, save the climate.

The despair is that as I am writing this news of the latest violent attacks on public populations going about their daily lives is emerging on two continents. It seems that the issues in our time for families is increasingly measured in their levels of trauma and vulnerability. Europe as a whole is in danger of becoming desensitized to the issues of famine, war displacement and violence the effects of which can appear in our therapy rooms and in the lives of our students and colleagues.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
In this very warm summer I am writing to you from a cold winter, being in Buenos Aires in order to represent EFTA in Latin America. RELATES is an association of Latin speaking countries the most part of which is in South America but it also includes Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. It was founded by our members J.L. Linares and R. Pereira.
RELATES is already member of our international Network of Family Therapy, which is very interesting for EFTA. Last year we participated to the Asian Conference of Family Therapy in Tokyo and to the IFTA Conference in Bangkok thanks to the commitment of our Board Member Martine Nisse and in the second also of our Board Member Umberta Telfener and General Secretary Nevena Cavsloska. You can find a report in this Newsletter by M. Nisse. This October we will be again in Asia (Taipei, Taiwan) for the AAFT Conference (Martie Nisse).
I was also present in EFTA CIM Conference in Toulouse, very interesting and very well organized by Thierry Darnaud and Anna Chouhy. Toulouse could become in the future the permanent Conference for Research in substitution of Heidelberg which closed with last year meeting.
We absolutely need to increase our research activity. For this reason I invite you to consider going to Berlin Conference this Fall.
I will be in Manchester for the EFTA NFTO Meeting organized by Monica Whyte in connection with the AFT (UK) Conference and in Timisoara for the EFTA TIC Meeting which will be as usual very interesting for trainers.
I would like also to point another interesting conference taking place in Milan on the 40th Anniversary of the Italian law by Franco Basaglia for the closing of Psychiatric Hospital : many of us will be there from different countries and EFTA sponsored the event.
As you see there are too many occasions and it is very difficult to make a choice !!!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am writing these few words from Lisbon, where I am participating and presenting in a very interesting conference of RELATES ( Red Latino-Americana y Europea de Escuelas Sistemicas) in which the spoken languages are Castillano (Spanish) and Portuguese. Founded by Roberto pereira and Juan Linares, it includes also some Catalan, French and Italian members.
It is an alternative world for our English-French speaking association with whom we start to be in touch. This participation is coherent with our program of creating soon a World Federation of Family Therapy in building which EFTA has an important position. After the first contacts made by our past President Kyriaki Polichroni and the very important meeting organized and chaired by our past President Maria Borcsa in Athens, we decided to keep contact with other continental associations (AFTA and AAMFT from USA and Canada, RELATES from Latin America -South and Central-, AAFT from Asia, Australian and New Zealand FT Association and some local association from Africa).
This year Maria Borcsa participated to the AFTA Conference in Philadelphia USA, I am now in Relates in Portugal and will go to Tokyo for Asiatic AAFT in November.

Dear Members of EFTA, Dear Friends and Colleagues,
On behalf of the EFTA board, I wish you a very Fruitful and Collaborative New Year.
I have been elected President of EFTA at our 9th Congress held in Athens 28 September – 1 October 2016. This is my first message to you.
Thanks to the hard and creative work of our outgoing president Maria Borcsa, this congress was a Great success with more than 1,500 participants and a lot of diverse and very interesting presentations.
I would like to thank Maria for her constructive and hard work as President in the last three years and specially for her capacity to save our last conference changing the location in less than one year: a real miracle. Our gratitude goes as well to Mina Todolou and all the Greek Members which were able to host us all in a wonderful and warm way.
Maria has started too a very interesting mondial network of the continental associations (which was a project also of the previous president Kyriaki Polychronis).
I hope she will continue this project with me for us all.

Dear friends and colleagues, Dear members of EFTA,
The last three years have passed rapidly and my presidency of EFTA is coming to an end. Having been active in EFTA for more than a decade, with two consecutive turns in the General Board and three more years in the position of president, I find it reasonable to make room for and pass my responsibilies to a new colleague. I wish to thank the actual General Board and all members for their trust, for the support and affection I received throughout my presidency! And I do hope that the new Board (after the elections in Athens) will continue with the same energy and dedication!
Dear friends, let us take care of and cultivate our organization which has grown substantially in the last years, having now members from 31 countries. Our association shows well how important and fruitful European solidarity can be. And let us advocate for our systemic ideas, which extend in both directions: a shared sense of belonging as well as richness of diversity as a value, a treasure on its own. Systemic thinking is ever more important in times when people proffer easy explanations and believe in short-sighted solutions for complex conditions…
Wishing you all the best and hope to see you all in Athens!
Maria Borcsa

Dear friends and colleagues, Dear members of EFTA,
The past year came to an end with a great loss – Luigi Onnis, Founding Member and Honorary President of EFTA, died on 24th December in Rome. With him, we have lost not only an important figure for our association but also a truly admired person. His kindness and his radiant smile will be severely missed. Having been active in the European Family Therapy Network that gave birth to EFTA, he followed enthusiastically his conviction that family therapy is due to gain an accurate place in the health policies of Europe. To honour his memory, we dedicate the first volume of the EFTA Book Series to Luigi Onnis with all our respect. Please give your attention to the obituary below and on our website.
As you may have heard, the conference of EFTA is moving to Athens. The call for abstracts just opened and we invite you to send in your proposals for workshops, symposia, posters or open-format contributions where you yourself decide how you wish to present your work. Please visit the conference website efta2016athens.gr! I would like to draw your attention also to the detail that during the conference – as usual – the new EFTA Board will be elected. Please consider this fact as an individual member, as member of the training institutes chamber or as a NFTO representative. Every member and member organization is called upon to participate actively in the elections!

Dear friends and colleagues,
EFTA is now a quarter of a century old! From 12th to 15th February we celebrated the 25th Anniversary of EFTA in Leuven, Belgium, in collaboration with BVRGS, the Belgian(-Flemish) Association of Family Therapy (thanks to the Chair Lieven Migerode for a perfect organization!) and the Catholic University of Leuven. Starting with a scientific event on the 12th and 13th we learned about the diverse applications of systemic and relational thinking at Belgian Universities in research and practice (below you can download most presentations). EFTA-NFTO held their annual meeting in Leuven and invited chairs and representatives of National Family Therapy Associations from all over Europe. EFTA-TIC organized a workshop for the directors of their member training institutes. On Valentine’s Day the festive afternoon was held in the beautiful building of the Leuven Institute for Ireland. It honored the pioneers of EFTA and told the history of family therapy in different European countries, interspersed with short performances from the Hungarian Psytheatre, reflecting playfully on the contributions from the audience. A “transcontinental conversation” with the current President of AFTA (American Family Therapy Academy), Prof. Gonzalo Bacigalupe was followed by participants’ ideas on the future of EFTA, in so doing concluding the session. During the festive evening a friendly chef took care of us and explained his choreography of the meal before serving it. Last but not least we had lots of fun during the auction, bringing together items from all over Europe – of course all very special and precious! Please visit the EFTA website to see pictures from these events!

Dear friends and colleagues,
This autumn marked not only the 25th anniversary of the “peaceful revolution” in Leipzig and the fall of the Berlin Wall, but commemorated also changes in Europe and beyond, resulting in the lifting of the iron curtain. For some of us these alterations still appear as a miracle. For the younger ones, Europe is experienced as a continent with open borders, travelling around freely seems “natural”. We should not forget though that these achievements are results of concrete social and political activities.
Taking action accordingly, 15 colleagues from 9 European countries seized the opportunity in these times of change. The former European Family Therapy Network, created in 1986 with its earlier foundations in conference meetings, initiated a European association. Established formally in 1990, EFTA will have existed a quarter of a century next year!
This association is growing year after year, playing a visible part on the global arena. Having now members from 29 European nations as well as from Israel is an accomplishment we wish to celebrate, with the founding and current members! Below you can read more information on this anniversary event.

Dear EFTA friends and colleagues all over Europe,
Between the 22nd and 25th of May 2014, European citizens will have the chance to influence the future political course of the European Union through elections. Most of us are invited to vote for the 751 Members of the European Parliament representing us for the next five years. These MEPs will be the agents for over 500 million citizens in 28 member states; the new political majority will shape European legislation for the next half decade. As the president of the European Family Therapy Association I take the right to appeal to you to participate in the elections and to contribute to a strong Europe where tolerance, plurality and reciprocity have a good standing…

In our 12th Newsletter we bring your news on EFTA’s three Chambers: CIM, TIC and NFTO. We also include links to articles of EFTA members in various languages and information on recent Book and Journal Publications, along with a Calendar of Events in countries of Europe and abroad. This month of October is an important month for EFTA: our 8th Congress, organized in collaboration with the Family and Marital Therapies Association of Turkey (AETD) is soon to be a reality…

A word from EFTA’s President

Dear Friends, dear Colleagues at our EFTA Network, Welcome to EFTA’s Newsletter 11! In the past months, we have put our efforts into developping a “new version” both of the EFTA website and of the Newsletter. We hope that you, too, will find this a creative development and that you will actively contribute to its further evolution. Our aim is that the Newsletter becomes a truly interactive means of exchanging information and experiences from our various professional activities. Towards this purpose, we have gathered together a number of interesting items in this Newsletter, including updates from the activities of EFTA’s 3 Chambers, news from our members, an article on the Status of Psychotherapy in Europe – by Alfred Pritz, a long-time member of the EAP Board – along with a number of interesting articles and publication announcements.

A word from the President of EFTA

Dear EFTA Colleagues, Many of us in the late 1960’s, may remember singing Bob Dylan’s “The Times they are a-Changin’”:
Come gather round people wherever you roam, And admit that the waters around you have grown, And accpt it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, For the times they are a-changin’. Now, after over 10 years into this new century, these lyrics are again relevant. In the midst of socioeconomic unpredictable developments, crises and imminent stress, we may ask: what are the processes that make it more likely that families overcome adversity and how do we as family therapists help families through these difficult periods?

A word from the President / Le mot de la Présidente

Dear EFTA Colleagues, I would like to extend to you a warm welcome to the 9th EFTA Newsletter. This edition of our Newsletter brings information from the 7th EFTA Congress, held in the city of light – Paris, France, in cooperation with the French Association of Family Therapy. Over 2000 colleagues attended this Congress where they had the opportunity to meet and exchange with each other on a scientific and personal level. We hope that the material presented in this newsletter may serve as a taste of this stimulating learning experience for those who could not join us in Paris and as a reminder for those of us who participated. This newsletter also introduces the members of the new General Board of EFTA, elected during the Paris Congress. As EFTA’s newly elected President, I will put my efforts into promoting systems science and practice throughout Europe and to interconnecting EFTA with other family therapy organizations in other parts of the globe.

A word from the President

Dear EFTA colleagues, Welcome to the 8th EFTA Newsletter. This edition marks my last one as your president, as I step down from my duties at the Paris Congress. It has been my very real pleasure to serve you in this way these past six years. I have watched EFTA grow in significance and influence, in helping systemic thinking and practice to become more visible in our communities and within our policy making organisations. This has been made possible by our developing collective vision and commitment to working across countries and training institutes and in honouring the work of all of us as individual practitioners and as members of different interest groups. I hope to see you in the Paris Congress where we will celebrate the diverse groupings that constitute EFTA and share our experiences of supporting our communities with systemic thinking, research and practice. Thank you all, and a special thank you to Fabienne Dardenne who manages and administers our Newsletter.

A word from the President

Welcome to the 7th EFTA Newsletter! We do hope you will find items for your interest. You will see we have more articles from colleagues in different countries. We welcome this development, and very much hope it will encourage more of you to send in your articles. You will see we have indicated the language of each article on the title heading, in response to a suggestion from one of our members. We also have news of EFTA activities, so that you can keep up-to-date with the work of the different EFTA Boards and committees. Please let us know your priorities as we wish to take action in ways that help all our communities and constituencies. And, finally, remember to put the date of the forthcoming EFTA conference in your diary: 29-31 October, 2010, Paris, France.

A word from the President

Dear EFTA members, Welcome to the 6th edition of our e-newsletter, in which we try to keep you up-to-date with some of the events and concerns in our systemic world! In response to feedback from our members, we now indicate the language in which the article is published. As this is an electronic newletter, we have the potential to publish in all European languages, and would encourage you to submit articles in your language. Please note the latest promotional material from our next EFTA Congress, to be held in Paris, October 29-31, 2010. We hope you enjoy this 6th newsletter! With best wishes

A word from the President

Welcome to our EFTA Newsletter. As you can see we have contributions from different events and different countries that show the wealth and range of tradition, experience and expertise within our organisation. If you would like to make a contribution to the Newsletter, please let us know – we should love to hear from you. With all good wishes

A word from the President

Welcome to the EFTA Newsletter 4! We have put together an interesting mix of articles and features, news from the three Boards of EFTA, and more news from the Glasgow congress. We hope you will find something to interest you! In particular, we draw your attention to the link to the research article by Irving Kirsch and colleagues, that challenges the evidence for the efficacy of some anti-depressant medication. We think this meta-analytic review of the published and unpublished data will have far reaching consequences for the practice of the systemic therapies. We include also Peter Stratton’s (EFTA TIC Board member) review of the evidence base for the family and systemic therapies, produced on behalf of AFT UK. Peter will be updating this review over the next year, and we shall bring that to you when it is available. Please remember that we always welcome EFTA members’ contributions, so keep them coming…

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.

A word from the President

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Welcome to this second Newsletter from the EFTA General Board. We have included updates from some of our member countries about changes to their social and health care policies. If you have not sent us some news from your country  – please do, as feedback so far suggests that our members really enjoy reading about what is happening around Europe! We hope you have the dates of the next EFTA Congress in your diaries – 4-6 October, 2007, in Glasgow. We are sharing our Congress with the UK Association for Family Therapy, and we are very grateful to them for their financial support and encouragement. Visit our website www.efta2007.com. We look forward to seeing you in October!

A word from the President

Dear Colleagues: members of the EFTA CIM, EFTA TIC, and EFTA NFTO Welcome to this first edition of the EFTA General Newsletter. In future, we hope to have special sections for the contributions of each of the 3 EFTA Chambers. In this Newsletter, we have included some important news from the UK Department of Health, and Institute of Clinical Excellence, in the hope it is of interest to colleagues in Europe. If you have news of health and social policy initiatives/directives from your country, of possible interest to other family therapists and systemic practitioners, please send it to us, and include the web link, so we can print it in future editions of the EFTA Newsletter […]