8TH EUROPEAN FAMILY THERAPY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, Istanbul, Turkey, 24 – 27 October 2013

The 8th European Family Therapy Association Congress is due to take place in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 24th – 27th 2013.

The scientific programme is now complete, and can be viewed on the EFTA Congress website. We are delighted to let you know that we have 10 participants from Ireland involved in the conference at all levels – from workshop presentations, symposiums, sub-plenary, plenary participants and chair discussions.

To view the full programme, and to access registration details, please visit the EFTA congress website at:

www.efta2013.org

Best Practice in Recording and Report Writing for Allied Health Professionals

Best Practice in Recording and Report Writing for Allied Health Professionals

One Day Intensive Training Programme
with
La Touche Training

Date: Saturday, 14th September 2013

Time: 9.30a.m. – 5.00p.m
(Registration from 9.00am)

Venue: Ashling Hotel, Parkgate Street, Dublin 8.

A one-day intensive training programme for Allied Health Professionals which equips them with the necessary knowledge and skills to create clinical records and reports that adhere to best practice standards, and that will stand up to legal scrutiny.

For course brochure and application form, please contact:

Ann Daly, FTAI, 73, Quinn’s Road, Shankill, Co. Dublin.
Tel: 01-2722105 E-Mail: amdps@indigo.ie

Please note that attendance at this training will carry 6 ½ CPD points towards the FTAI CPD requirements.

The West is Awake!! Systemic Cafe Galway

Child to Parent Violence:
A Systemic Response
May 25th 2013 , Galway

The West is awake!!!

The recent Systemic Café on Child to Parent violence was the first Systemic Café to venture outside Dublin.

A well attended and lively discussion, facilitated by Declan Coogan, brought up lots of dilemmas for us but also provided ideas on how to work systemically with families experiencing child to parent violence.

Well done to the Regional Subcommittee on hosting such an enjoyable evening!

Karen Leonard

Systemic Cafe 27th May 2013: “Suicide”: a conversation on how therapists can work most effectively with people who are suicidal

Welcome to the next Systemic Cafe where FTAI members, colleagues & friends meet to socialise, share ideas, observe, or participate in a short discussion, have a drink & relax. As always it is free. It was our desire to come together in a relaxed atmosphere of friendship and therapeutic curiosity that has made the Systemic Cafe so appealing. We have a great venue with a cosy fire, comfortable seats and warm ambiance (a fine, private section of the original Bar at the old Berkley Court Hotel – now renamed The Clyde Court Hotel).

Venue: THE CLYDE HOTEL (formerly D-4 BERKLEY COURT HOTEL)
Lansdowne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.
(3 mins.from Lansdowne Rd. DART, 15 mins walk from Grafton St.)
Date: Monday 27th May 2013
Time: 7.00 – 9.00pm
Topic: “Suicide: a conversation on how therapists can work most effectively with people who are suicidal.”

Suicide is a subject that we are learning more about all the time so as to help our clients and
ourselves in this difficult area. One of our starting speakers is Deirdre Flynn who is the Director of Student Counselling at Trinity College, Dublin and has been working in the College Service since 1993. Deirdre is a Psychotherapist and has published articles on the impact of client suicide on therapists. We are waiting on confirmation from two other speakers who will join Deirdre to start the conversation.

This is an area that is very challenging for therapists. How can we best prepare ourselves for working with people who are suicidal? Which preventative approaches have been found to be most effective? How might a ‘systemic perspective’ be useful in these situations?

Exploring the impact of client suicide on the therapist is something we can learn more about so as to support ourselves, family members and our colleagues. In our community of therapists, we have much experience that can be of help to each other.

A FREE GLASS OF WINE, BEER OR BALLYGOWAN AWAITS YOU!
For those coming directly from work, The Clyde Hotel has a ‘Bar Food’ menu (at your own expense!). The discussion starts at 7pm.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) = 2 hours CPD certificates will be issued by the Family Therapy Assoc. of Ireland (FTAI). See you @ the Systemic Cafe

Launch of new video about Couples and Family Therapy in Ireland

Orla Barry, the Director of Mental Health Reform, attended our AGM on 13th April  2013 and formally launched our new video about Couples and Family Therapy in Ireland.

The video is an overview about the benefits people can expect from attending counselling with members of our association. The video also looks at

  • the cost and the duration of therapy,
  • how to contact a therapist,
  • the issues and concerns that people bring to sessions
  • who we see: individuals, couples and families
  • the code of ethics to ensure best practice by our members
  • the substantial  7-year  training and intense supervision that couple and family therapist undergo to help ensure that the work we do will give our clients the best possible help with their issues and problems.

You can also view extracts from the video under the headings below. You can find out how to use and embed these videos on to your own site by following the instructions given on the FTAI Video page.

Benefits of Family Therapy

Finding a Therapist

 

FTAI & Training

 

What is Family Therapy?

 

What to expect from Family Therapy?

 

Why go to Family Therapy?

 

MSc in Systemic Therapy Information Evening, Clanwilliam Institute

‘MSc in Systemic Therapy Information Evening
Monday, April 29, 2013 in Dublin

Clanwilliam Institute,
18 Clanwilliam Terrace, Grand Canal Quay, Dublin 2.

Clanwilliam is hosting an Information Evening about our 4-year Masters programme on 29th April
(5 – 7 pm). The event will allow anyone (social workers, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, school guidance counsellors, graduates of counselling courses, others) interested in getting a degree in Family Therapy to meet our training staff and have all your questions about the course answered.
For details on the MSc in Systemic Therapy please visit our website:
http://www.clanwilliam.ie/msc-in-systemic-therapy/’

Grown-up sleepovers: Kate Holmquist Irish Times. Terence Herron FTAI, responds to the question

Grown-up ‘sleepovers’
Tell Me About It – Kate Holmquist answers your questions
Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 00:00 – Irish Times

Q I went up to my son’s bedroom one morning to see two heads in the bed, one a stranger’s. In the past, I have allowed my young-adult children to have girlfriends/boyfriends sleep over, but as it happens these have always been long-term relationships. This new girl, my son says, is “just a friend”.
I am worried that she is going to be hurt because I know he is not interested in commitment at this time. I don’t know how to talk to him about this and can hardly ban sleepovers now that a precedent has been set.
A I can imagine your surprise as well as your attempts to remain the liberal mother in this awkward situation, but you can hardly be expected to remain serenely oblivious when passing a stranger on the way to the bathroom. Will your son start bringing one-night stands home on a regular basis? Is his claim that they’re “just friends” credible?
After reading your letter, Terence Herron, family and couples therapist with the Family Therapy Association of Ireland, comments: “The writer feels major concern for a person she doesn’t know, more so than for her own needs and her own home. She should check out her own needs first.”
He suggests that the real issue isn’t the young woman’s feelings, but your own need to tell your son: “I’m not happy with you bringing home strange girls. I was happy with sleepovers in the past because you were in a long-term boyfriend/girlfriend relationship where we knew the young woman, but I’m not happy with this.”
It’s not a moral issue. You are entitled to your space.
“What I am hearing a lot these days is that in some cases it’s very hard for the parents of adult children living at home to assert themselves,” says Herron. Don’t let your son push your guilt buttons.He may accuse you of being too strict, but being liberal doesn’t mean anything goes in your house.

Boys as young as nine struggling to cope with “tsunami of porn”

Lynne Kelleher – Independent.ie 6th March 2013
Children are viewing online pornography at just nine or 10 years of age – and a new study has shown that their shocked parents have no idea how to control what their youngsters are seeing.
A new RTE documentary ‘Generation Sex’ last night investigated the fallout from the easy accessibility of graphic sexual images and hardcore pornography at the click of a button.
Professor Bryan Roche of NUI Maynooth said that young people were struggling to cope with the tsunami of sexual images in day-to-day life.
He said: “The problem with the internet is it is absolutely instantaneous and now, with the advent of WiFi in everybody’s phone and in public places and with phones in their pocket that have internet access, it means you don’t have to wait.
“That moves the relationship with pornography into a more problematic level and basically raises the risk somewhat because it basically harbours and facilitates almost compulsive behaviour with no downside.
Psychotherapist and chairperson of the Family Therapy Association of Ireland Trish Murphy said boys as young as nine or 10 were now viewing pornography in their kitchen while doing their homework.
“Parents are still shocked at how young this can happen. It happens in the living room or in the kitchen while doing homework.
“This is not secret or hidden in their bedroom and the difficulties they experience is that they have nobody to talk to. It is happening pre-puberty and it can be very confusing.”
The in-depth TV investigation carried out by counselling psychologist Deborah Mulvany also revealed how new studies shows Ireland is on par with the rest of Europe when it comes to viewing pornography.
The documentary reveals that many young Irish people are struggling with problems relating to intimacy and sex that are dramatically different from previous generations because of the readily available graphic sexual imagery.
The chairperson of the Family Therapy Association of Ireland, Trish Murphy, said: “I think it is having a huge effect. Boys and girls can be critical of their own bodies and they can expect more of themselves sexually.
“Porn can also be highly addictive. We need to offer support in national school and to educate parents about what is happening, so kids can have somebody to talk to about it.”

Trish Murphy, Chair FTAI, responds to question about relationships – Irish Times 6th March 2013

KATE HOLMQUIST – Irish Times Wednesday, 6th March 2013
Q My widowed father has been in a very happy long-term relationship but is now uncertain about continuing with it and wants to break up.
My siblings, who live abroad, have always encouraged this relationship, as it assuages their consciences about not visiting often enough and the burden of care falling with me.
At the moment he is well and independent, but they like him having a companion to be there to prevent loneliness and to be there in a crisis. But I feel that he should make whatever choice he wants, even though the implications of him being alone will most likely fall to me.
A My initial reaction is that you are right to support your father in whatever pleases him and to pledge your support. Then I wonder why your family is taking sides, when your father is no teenager and has to make his own decisions. If you’re divided now, what about the future when life-and-death decisions concerning your father may await?
“It’s very important to handle this well because this could set the scene for quite serious divisions in the future over issues such as long-term care,” says Trish Murphy psychotherapist and chair of the Family Therapy Association of Ireland.
“This is a classic conflict situation where if you go with one set of family opinion you have a win, making it a win-lose scenario, and a win won’t work,” she says.
Exacerbating the issue is that those sibling rivalries and jealousies never go away and can raise their ugly heads in fraught emails and phonecalls across time zones.
The best solution, she suggests, is for the family to reunite back home and sort things out with your father and each other.
Before you dismiss this as impractical, Murphy warns: “This is a big deal – it would be worth their while because this would be the basis of everything in the future that might happen, such as the possibility of long-term care, decisions about health and even the property and the will.
“It’s not uncommon for people to have to get a ward of court because the family can’t agree on a parent’s future. Division now could result in generations of the family not speaking to one another.”
If you can’t organise a geographic face-to-face, then Murphy suggests a Skype family meeting with a family therapist present.
If a Skype reunion seems a step too far, you might suggest counselling to your father to enable him to make a clear adult decision without worrying about what everybody else thinks.