Family systemic therapy in the home : reigniting the fire

Abstract

The current models that we use in systemic family therapy came out of office/clinic-based practice. To date, there is no model specifically orientated to systemic family therapy in the home. As a systemic family therapist, I argue that non-traditional approaches may need to be considered; and that systemic family therapy models should come closer to reflecting discourses that have shades of global influences. My interest in the area emerged from a position of ignorance – making assumptions that the tools used in the clinic could easily be colonised into a family’s home – but I found that the models often used in the clinic do not necessarily transfer easily into the home. an adaptation of a systematic review was conducted that undermined the notion that therapists are ‘knowing’ with particular skill and competency to work in the home. I ask the question: How do I improve upon my systemic family therapy practice to work in families’ homes? African oral traditional ideas (AOTI) are broadly explored to consider the notion of self and bod����ily feelings as a source of knowledge. Through the use of AOTI I created an approach known as Seselelame, foregrounding a new practice stemming from ideas that are not home grown within the systemic family therapy perspectives, to support my practice within the home. the inquiry offers the following contribution of new knowledge to family systemic therapy: conceptualization of a method (Seselelame) that incorporates the idea of self in the context of awareness of feelings in the body; a method that incorporates African oral traditional ideas and thus expanded the traditional Western view of family/systemic therapy; contextualization of the significance of home as a source of knowledge; the Seselelame model was used as an analytical tool alongside a systemic constructionist analytical model to compare and contrast the data produced. The findings conclude that the inquiry has implications for the practice and teaching of systemic family therapy, which will eventually be published once the thesis is completed.