A Festschrift for Imelda McCarthy Phd was held in December last in the University of Bedfordshire, who created a Fifth Province to celebrate one of systemic field’s pioneers. A wonderful occasion – as shown in the photos below! Congratulations Imelda!
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
Psychology Today 6 January 2019
Emily Green Psy.D.
There Is Always Another Part
A 2019 Resolution: Go Off Script
This year, let’s challenge the rigid life narratives that keep us stuck.
If you had told me five years ago that this holiday season I would be wearing a Christmas sweater with a cat in a Santa hat on it, while proudly proclaiming myself a “cat mom,” I would have told you that you had lost it.
I was a dog person. I am a dog person. But as it turns out, as I discovered after stumbling upon and eventually taking in a meowing, underfed creature in my closed-in courtyard in Brooklyn one day in May of 2015, I am also a cat person.
I won’t lie, my insistence on my “dog person” identity probably almost stopped me from taking the plunge and welcoming a cat into my life. To do so would be to go against the narrative that I had written for myself, the collections of stories and beliefs and experiences that make up “who I am”. And had I stuck to the script- I’m a dog person, I can’t have a cat- I would have missed out on exploring an entirely different part of myself, a chance to flesh out a range of interests, emotions, and interpersonal connections that had been previously untapped. Now I buy Christmas sweaters with cats on them and have 491 photos of my own cat on my phone.
I tell this story as a suggestion to us all – and a reminder to myself- to make 2019 the year of shedding our attachment to the rigid narratives we spin for ourselves, particularly the ones that keep us from growing and expanding our lives. We all have a narrative about ourselves, who we are, who we expect to be, what we expect …read more
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
Dublin footballer on the challenges of tackling his mental health issues
Irish Times Tue, Jan 8, 2019, 06:00
Ian O’Riordan
The last thing Shane Carthy wants or expects right now is to walk back on to the Dublin panel.
Not with his utterly changed perspective on life and football and everything else in between. Or indeed his heightened sense of what exactly constitutes success.
What he does want, and expects of himself, is to give it his best shot, and whether that’s good enough time will tell.
In the meantime the telling of his story, his crippling and at times terrifying experience with depression in the aftermath of Dublin’s All-Ireland winning success of 2013, to breaking point a year later, aged only 19 and the rising star of the county under-21 team, has been proving both therapeutic and rewarding.
It has been the latter in helping him realise how fortunate he’s been to come through it all, including the good and bad days with Dublin football.
Six days before Christmas, in a lengthy online blog, Carthy wrote frankly and eloquently about his journey over the last four and a half years.
It detailed, without overdramatising, the downward spiral which, days after producing a man-of-the-match display in Dublin’s 2014 Leinster under-21 final win over Meath, saw him wake up in St Patrick’s Mental Hospital.
Only then did he begin to face up to “the inner demons I had kept away from for many years”.
Under the very deliberate headline ‘I’m No Longer Surviving, I’m Living!’, Carthy also explains what ultimately brought him back to where he is now, just turned 24 and more determined to ever to revive his football career with Dublin.
“The first intention with the blog was to busy myself, to give something back to myself, positively, and maybe further afield in the sporting community,” says Carthy, who in …read more
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
How to lose your clinical balance, while holding on to your therapeutic bearings, and other ideas on working therapeutically with a ‘treatment resistant’ client diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder
Don Boardman
Click below for full article
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY
Date: Tuesday, 27th November 2018
Time: 7.00pm – 9.00pm
Venue: Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2.
Topic: Complaints: Protecting the client & the therapist.
The following members of the FTAI Complaints Sub-committee will lead the conversation:
• Ann Marie Burke
• Peter Caffrey
• Mara de Lacy
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) = 2 hours. CPD certificates will be issued by the Family Therapy Assoc. of Ireland (FTAI). See you @ the Systemic Café.
Date for your Diary Systemic Cafe 27th November 2018
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
Narrative Therapy – Exploring with “Maps”
2 Workshops
With
Therese Hegarty
In these two workshops, participants will explore some of the ideas from Foucault, Bruner and Myerhoff, which inspired the work of Michael White and learn to use the “maps” which guide his Narrative Practice [White 2007]
Experiential exercises will be used to allow participants understand the ideas behind Narrative Practice in relation to their own lives.
Participants will reflect on work they are involved in with families to clarify the meaning of dominant stories, preferred stories, problem saturated stories and alternative stories.
Structured interviews will be used so that participants have a chance to experience how Narrative “Maps” scaffold therapeutic conversations.
Journaling exercises will be offered to those who wish to continue the reflective aspect of the course.
Participants are advised to read ‘Maps of Narrative Practice” [White 2007 Norton] before day one or between day one and day two. This will greatly deepen the learning on the course and provide a guiding text to return to in the long term.
The Facilitator- Therese Hegarty
Following a career as a primary teacher, where the influence of family on children’s’ wellbeing in school was evident, Therese studied for the MSc in Systemic Psychotherapy at the Mater. She then set up a community based family therapy practice in West Tallaght where she works at present. In 2007/2008 she undertook the International Diploma in Narrative Therapy and Community Work in Adelaide. She gave keynote addresses at the Narrative Conference in Adelaide in 2008 and at the Narrative Therapy Conference in Grahamstown, South Africa in 2011.
Therese teaches Level One and Level Two Narrative Therapy courses on request. She facilitates an advanced Narrative Therapy training group which meets three time a year and she teaches Narrative Practice to future primary teachers on the BEd in Maynooth University.
Click on link …read more
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
Meeting of the NFTO Chamber of EFTA.
33 participants from 16 countries considered the question of identity from multiple perspectives in true systemic fashion.
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
Relational Suicide Assessment:
Client and Family Risks and Resources
One Day Workshop
With
Douglas Flemons
The hopelessness and desperation of our suicidal clients, as well as the high-stakes involved in working with them, can invite us to adopt a kind of therapeutic tunnel-vision—a singular focus on individual risk factors. Attending to such dangers is critical, of course, but family therapists know better than anyone that behaviors, thoughts, and emotions only make sense in context. To evaluate clients’ imminent risk of making an attempt, it is necessary to consider how their relationships with significant others could be contributing to the danger. And then these intra- and interpersonal risks can only be properly understood within the context of the individual and family resources for responding resiliently to the suicidality.
This workshop will prepare participants to undertake relational suicide assessments—empathically-grounded conversations with clients, oriented to developing an “insider’s” understanding of clients’ risks of making an attempt alongside their potential for safely navigating the dangers. We will explore how to effectively broach possible suicidality, ensure that clients don’t feel interrogated, juxtapose different sources of information to help make safety decisions, work collaboratively with clients and family members in the construction of a safety plan, and take care of ourselves throughout the process. We’ll also touch on postvention considerations—how to work with families and schools after someone significant has taken his or her life.
The Presenter
Dr. Douglas Flemons is Professor of Family Therapy, Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, and Co-Director of the Office of Suicide and Violence Prevention at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Florida, USA. A licensed marriage and family therapist and AAMFT Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor, Douglas was the Director of Student Counseling at NSU for over six years. He is the lead author of Relational Suicide Assessment, as well as the author of books on hypnosis …read more
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
UCD
School of Medicine and Medical Science
M.Sc. Systemic Psychotherapy
The UCD Family Therapy Training Programme now invites applications for
Year 1 of its 4 Year Part-time
M.Sc. in Systemic Psychotherapy.
The programme will commence in September 2018.
Closing date for Applications:
27th April 2018
Further Information:
Contact: Ciara Reddy
Email: creddy@nullmater.ie
Apply on line at www.ucd.ie/apply
Shortlisted candidates will be called for interview
Ad for Mater UCD MSc Systemic Psychotherapy 2018
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
Please note that the FTAI Annual General Meeting, due to take place in Wynns Hotel, Dublin on the 3rd March, has been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
Original post: Family Therapy Association of Ireland
