Intensive Family Therapy Certificate Program

Enrollment: Register for the Congress and also click on Certificate Course.
There is a $25 fee for these Intensive Courses.

Note: You must register for the conference in order to attend an Intensive Course. There is an additional $25 fee to register for an Intensive Course.

Certificate: Participants receive a Certificate signifying that they have completed a one-day Intensive Family Therapy Course offered by IFTA.

Date & Time Course #1 Instructor
Friday, 22 February
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM		 Overview and Introduction
to Family Therapy		 Dorothy S. Becvar

 

Date & Time Course #2 Instructors
Saturday, 23 February
8:30 AM – 5:00 PM		 Models of Family Therapy  
Satir Family Therapy Kathlyne Maki-Banmen
Structural Family Therapy Derek Ball
Narrative Family Therapy Paul Gallant

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1.  OVERVIEW AND INTRODUCTION TO FAMILY THERAPY

 


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Friday,  22 February 2013
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Instructor:  Dorothy S. Becvar, Ph.D.

This course provides a survey of the family therapy field, including its epistemological roots and both seminal and current approaches to clinical practice. Participants are introduced to a systems theoretical perspective at the levels of first-order and second-order cybernetics as well as to the distinctions between modern and postmodern orientations to therapy. In addition to consideration of the many models of family therapy, also addressed are the dynamics of families and the impact of cultural, structural, and other contextual variations. The course includes didactic instruction, large and small group discussions, video presentations, and role plays or other simulations, as all are invited to engage actively in the teaching/learning process.

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2.  MODELS OF FAMILY THERAPY

Saturday, 23 February
8:30 AM - 5:00PM

This interactive course provides a survey of three important models of family therapy. Participants are introduced to each of the three systemic approaches, including theoretical perspectives on family dynamics and interventions to work with families. The course may include didactic instruction, large and small group discussions, video presentations, and role-plays or other simulations, as all are invited to engage actively in the teaching/learning process.

Satir Family Therapy Kathlyne Maki-Banmen
Structural Family Therapy Derek Ball
Narrative Family Therapy Paul Gallant

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Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy
Kathlyne Maki-Banmen, Satir Institute of the Pacific

The Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy Model (STST) is unique in encompassing both the intrapsychic and interactive components of therapy.  The process taps the universal yearnings and spiritual essence of individuals within their personal family and social systems and helps them work towards a sense of responsible wholeness.  Intrapsychic change, therefore, not only occurs in clients’ behaviour, cognition and affect but in their sense of Being.  When the spiritual essence is accessed experientially, positive possibilities become easily apparent and transformational change as an energetic shift becomes possible within each family member and in their relationshiops.  With transformational change, clients experience more of their true essence and release the negative impacts they have held.  Family members experience each other in more positive ways.  They become more willing to make new connections, accept differences, and release reactive feelings, perceptions and expectations that have kept them from being open to each other.

Objectives:

  1. make contact with each family members' spiritual essence and internal resources
  2. understand the five essential elements of transformational change
  3. guide clients towards positive possibilities within both their intrapsychic and interactive systems
  4. use experiential process to transform negative impacts and create new positive internal and relationship experiences
  5. accept differences and use them as a vehicle for growth

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Structural Family Therapy
Derek Ball, PhD

Salvador Minuchin (1974) defined family structure as “the invisible set of functional demands that organizes the ways in which family members interact. A family is a system that operates through transactional patterns.” Structural Family Therapy is based upon a model which explains that family transactions or interactions are organized by an invisible set of “family rules.” There are functional or dysfunctional family rules for boundaries, coalitions, and power hierarchies between subsystems (parental, siblings, and individuals). A family is functional or dysfunctional based upon its ability to adapt to various stressors, and the level of functionality tends to be dependent upon the clarity and appropriateness of the subsystem boundaries. Functional systems have appropriate boundaries between subsystems. Dysfunctional systems are “enmeshed” (too close) or “disengaged” (too distant) and subsystems and individuals may be “triangulated.”

Objectives:

  1. Gain knowledge for a historical perspective of Structural Family Therapy.
  2. Understand how the model for Structural Family Therapy is a distinct way of thinking about the family, the presenting problem, and the process of change.
  3. Be able to identify who or what is maintaining the dysfunction of a system by recognizing how conflict avoidance is maintaining equilibrium but preventing growth and differentiation through enmeshment or disengagement.
  4. Describe the therapist’s role to gradually create therapeutic change by challenging existing assumptions and introducing more flexible ways of functioning through positive feedback.
  5. Describe the therapeutic techniques used to restructure a family system to move it toward healthier interactions, including "joining techniques", and techniques aimed at provoking disequilibrium and change (enactment, boundary-making, re-framing, punctuation, and unbalancing).

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Narrative Therapy
Paul Gallant, Associate Professor in the Master of Family Therapy Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia

This course will provide opportunity for participants to learn the key theoretical understandings that provide the foundation for the Narrative Therapy approach. In addition, Dr. Gallant will present the essential skills of Narrative Therapy, including Repositioning; Scaffolding Questions; Externalizing the Problem; the Absent but Implicit; and, Outsider Witnessing.

The structure of the course will be interactive, with live and video demonstration of the skills, question and answer time, and opportunity to discuss the application of these skills to a variety of challenging problems.

Bibliography Gallant, J. P. (2008). In Memoriam: Michael White-Therapist,Teacher, Innovator.  Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. 34 (4), 427-428.

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Dorothy Becvar

Dorothy Becvar is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist with 30 years of experience in both academia and private practice. Dorothy is currently serving as Editor of Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal. She has published extensively and in addition to many journal articles and book chapters is the author of the books Families that Flourish: Facilitating Resilience in Clinical Practice (Norton, 2007), In the Presence of Grief: Helping Family Members Resolve Death, Dying and Bereavement Issues (Guilford Press, 2001) and Soul Healing: A Spiritual Orientation in Counseling and Therapy (Basic Books, 1997) as well as the editor of the book The Family, Spirituality and Social Work (Haworth, 1997). With her husband, Raphael J. Becvar, she has co-authored four books: Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration (Allyn & Bacon, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009), Pragmatics of Human Relationships (Geist & Russell, 1998), Hot Chocolate for a Cold Winter's Night: Essays for Relationship Development (Love Publishing, 1994), and Systems Theory and Family Therapy: A Primer (University Press of America, 1982, 1999). And she is co-editor, with William Nichols, Mary Anne Pace-Nichols and Augustus Napier, of the Handbook of Family Development and Intervention (Wiley, 2000).

Education
Ph.D., Saint Louis University
MSW, Saint Louis University

Teaching Areas
Social work practice with families/family therapy
Grief/therapeutic approaches to loss and change
Spirituality and social work
Couples and marital counseling
Sex therapy

Research Interests
Family resilience
How healing happens
Complementary and alternative medicine
Spirituality

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Kathlyne Maki-Banmen

Kathlyne Maki-Banmen has trained therapists in using Virginia Satir's Systemic Therapy Model in various countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. She has provided workshops and seminars to therapists, educators and parents for over thirty years. She is a faculty supervisor for government accredited psychotherapy training programmes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Ms Maki-Banmen is presently an Assistant Director of Training of the Satir Institute of the Pacific (SIP) and was formerly a past president and member of the Board of Directors for SIP. She currently works in private practice in Delta, BC, Canada with individuals, couples and families, and supervising counselors.

Education
M.A. Counseling Psychology, University of British Columbia
B.Ed. Special Education, University of Calgary

Teaching Credentials
Permanent Professional Teaching Certificate, Province of British Columbia
Senior Faculty, Satir Institute of the Pacific
Workshop leader in Hong Kong, Singapore, Czech Republic, Slovakia, India, Thailand, USA, Canada
Associate Faculty, Northwest Satir Institute

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Paul Gallant

Paul Gallant, Ph.D. has worked at developing his craft as a family therapist and educator since earning his MSW degree from Dalhousie University in 1975, and his Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Florida State University in 1988.

He is currently Associate Professor in the Master of Family Therapy Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia.

Before moving from eastern Canada in 1985, Paul offered therapeutic services to young people, adults, couples and families in various settings that included child welfare, a substance abuse treatment program, a hospital psychiatric unit, a youth residential program and a family counseling center. After receiving his doctorate, he began a 21-year teaching career in social work and family therapy graduate programs. With over 30 years of direct practice experience, Paul has offered workshops and training in Narrative Therapy in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Mexico and South America.

His most recent publications include two book chapters, Narrative Therapy with Couples in the edited text, Case Studies in Couples Therapy: Theory-Based Approaches; and, Narrative Analysis: The Effects on Student Learning from Experiencing a Practicum in Marriage and Family therapy, in the edited text, Nursing Research: A Qualitative Perspective. One of his fourteen published journal articles includes the tribute to the life of Michael White: In Memoriam: Michael White-Therapist, Teacher, Innovator in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.

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Derek Ball

Derek Ball, PhD is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has worked with couples and families for over twenty years.  After his initial training in the MFT PhD program at Purdue University, Dr. Ball went on to practice at Marriage and Family Counseling Service in Rock Island, IL and serve as Director of the Hiebert Institute.

In addition to teaching at the Hiebert Institute and Augustana College, Dr. Ball has trained  interns from PhD programs from across the United States, from Turkey, and from other mental health fields like pastoral counseling and social work.  Dr. Ball has also conducted trainings across Iowa and Illinois as a Certified Trainer in the Prepare/Enrich inventories.

Dr. Ball has served as President of the Illinois Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and is currently in his fifth year as IAMFT Executive Director, where he lobbies on behalf of MFTs across Illlinois and coordinates an annual conference among other responsibilities.

Dr. Ball is a Clinical Fellow of AAMFT, a member of IFTA and is Certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and the SASSI, an assessment device for substance abuse.

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