The Systemic Way

In this episode we speak with Dr Sharon Bond and Kerri Newns about Chiron, an independent training institution. We hear stories, reflections and processes on the journey of creating and developing an additional voice to the mainstream systemic training institutions. 

In this episode Julie and Sezer speak with Gwyn Daniel,  a systemic psychotherapist and trainer who has experience of working in both children's services and in adult mental health.  We focus on her wonderful book Family Dramas: Intimacy Power and Systems in Shakespeare's Tragedies (2018) and the connection between systemic thinking and the arts. Gwyn is also co-author of Gender and Family Therapy (with Charlotte Burck), Growing Up in Stepfamilies (with Gill Gorell Barnes, P. Thompson and N. Burckhardt) and co-editor of Mirrors and Reflections: Processes in Systemic Supervision (with Charlotte Burck) as well as many other professional articles and book chapters. She has taught widely in the UK and internationally on many topics, including children and post divorce conflicts, systemic approaches to families where there is parental mental illness and on systemic couple's therapy. She continues to find ideas about gender and power central to her understanding of family relationships and organisational dilemmas.

In this episode Sezer and Julie speak with Nana Bonsu and Derek Dyer about their wonderful work in integrating systemic ideas within the context of children and families social work. Nana is the head of service for a local authority and leads on the implementation of systemic practice and Derek is the service manager for the local authorities children looked after and care leavers teams. 

In this episode Julie and Sezer speak with Consultant Systemic Family Psychotherapist Esther Usiskin Cohen about her inspiring work with refugee populations in the jungle camps in Calais. We hear about the Refugee Resiliance Collective (AKA Calais Resilience Collective - Tavistock Group) which is a team of therapist who are developing approaches to enhance the resilience, capacity, coping strategies and skills of refugees, staff and volunteers in the Calais camp. 

In this episode Sezer and Julie speak with Karen Carberry and Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon about their paper Black Therapists – White Families, therapists’ perceptions of cultural competence in clinical practice (2020) which can be found in The International Handbook of Black Community Mental Health (Majors, Carberry, & Ransaw, 2020). 

In this episode, Julie and Sezer speak with Systemic Psychotherapist Doreen Robinson and Dr Reenee Singh about their practice, experience and ideas within their joint paper Forced Marriage as a Representation of a Belief System in the UK and its Psychological Impact on Well-being  (2020) which can be found in The International Handbook of Black Community Mental Health (Majors, Carberry, & Ransaw, 2020).

This episode is a conversation with highly specialist systemic psychotherapist, Vanessa Walker, covering her perspectives on her own systemic training and how it connects with some of her family scripts and her Context article I am my father's daughter. 

In this episode we speak with systemic psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer, Amy Urry, about ideas in her paper 'THE GOOD ENOUGH FAMILY THERAPIST: We may choose to be Family Therapists but not necessarily in circumstances of our choosing'. In this podcast we draw upon systemic and attachment ideas alongside professional and personal experiences to consider what it means to be an adequate family therapist in professional and personal contexts that fall short of ideal. 

In this episode Julie and Sezer speak with Jason Maldonado-Page about using the Social GGRRAACCEESS as a vehicle to explore issues of identity, relational reflexivity and self-reflexivity in  family therapy. Jason has over twenty years experience working with children, adolescents, adults, couples and families in a variety of statutory and voluntary settings both in the USA and the UK. He is the associate lecturer in systemic practice at the Tavistock and Portman, and also work as an independent family and systemic psychotherapist. Jason has a wide range of clinical experiences including working in specialist services such as eating disorders, gender identity, learning disability and autism spectrum condition, cancer and bereavement.

In this episode Sezer and Julie speak with Dr Ged Smith about the factors that have shaped his systemic practice. Dr Ged Smith is a family therapist of more than 25 years in both CAMHS and Adult Services with various NHS Trusts in the North West as well as in Private Practice. He has been teaching, supervising and consulting all over the world in this time, and has many articles published in academic journals and Context, of which he is a regular contributor and deputy editor. His special interests concern power and gender, particularly masculinity and working with men, which was the subject of his Doctoral study