Year
2021Credit points
10Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Prerequisites
FTHY609 Live Supervision and Reflecting Team Practice 2
Teaching organisation
150 hours of focused learning.Unit rationale, description and aim
Both psychotherapy and family and systemic therapy (FST) research are increasingly identifying that disrupted attachment process are heavily involved in complex clinical presentation, and that apparently treatment resistant family systems are able to change but require a high level expertise in precisely delivered attachment based systemic therapy. To deliver effective FST for complex families you need to learn which aspects of the models, processes and practice you will need to use, how to tailor treatment to the specific family presentation, and undertake live-supervised practice and deliberate extended reflection and evaluation of your practice. This unit builds on FTHY605 and FTHY607, Live Supervision and Reflecting-Team Practice 1&2 and provides you with advanced level live-supervised practice and teamwork for complex presentations. You will continue to use the reflecting team process to deepen your practical knowledge, develop advanced FST and teamwork competencies, learn the clinical application of Case-Based research practices and refine the quality of your clinical decision-making. You will learn to work with a clinical team to collaboratively assess and tailor a systemic conceptualisation to the level of family functioning, generate treatment-relevant formulations and deliver FST. You will learn to establish a broader balanced alliance, and manage the challenges involved in developing and delivering a coherent treatment plan. Your reflective conversations with your clinical team will provide you with an anchor for your practice, managing boundaries, and confidentiality, and you will become fluent in using formal and informal treatment feedback, evaluation and outcome measures. You and your clinical team will review the recording of sessions, generate and review your collective learning plans, reflect on your decision-making, evaluate the process and quality of outcomes, and discuss and assess your emerging FST competencies.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:
LO1 - Communicate knowledge and application of attachment-based family and systemic research-informed treatments for complex family presentations, including developing generative teamwork and complex balanced alliance. (GA1, GA3, GA5, GA7, GA8, GA9)
LO2 - Systematically collect, analyse, evaluate and report clinical decision-making in a sequence of sessions of FST treatment. (GA4, GA5)
LO3 - Conduct an in-depth analysis and evaluation of In-the-moment clinical decision-making in a pivotal FST session. (GA4, GA5)
Graduate attributes
GA1 - demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity
GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making
GA4 - think critically and reflectively
GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession
GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively
GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information
GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media
Content
Topics will include:
- Supervision of complex family systems in real-time or with participants' own recorded session, and a reflecting team.
- Teamwork and balanced alliance
- Clinical application of Case-based research practices
- Pragmatic Case Studies
- In-depth analysis and evaluation of clinical decision-making In-the-moment,
- How to refine the quality of your practice over a sequence of sessions,
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
In this unit, a supervisor-guided reflecting-team of no more than 6 members is re-established. The reflecting team is a well-established and effective clinical and supervisory format that is designed to be of benefit to both clients and therapists, and because of the reflective process and discussion of both the clients’ experience and the therapist’s practices, new understanding emerge and provide you with advanced level live supervised practice. This unit is delivered concurrently with FTHY608 Systemic Attachment Processes & Neuroscience, which provides you with the systemic attachment and neuroscience frameworks and a descriptive language to generate systemic conceptualisation and useful formulations. This unit involves 35 hours of reflecting-team and clinical teamwork supervised by senior supervisors, delivered in an intensive mode of 2-3 day workshops. You and your clinical team are supported and guided in identifying your process of acquiring and integrating FST competencies and in using research-informed conceptual frameworks. The reflecting team process includes detailed feedback to you when you are the therapist, and feedback to your reflecting team. You and your team will record, analyse and evaluate therapy sessions, identify in-the-moment decision-making processes and focus on generative and challenging moments. You and the team will discuss and reflect on challenges you faced with that particular client system and plan the subsequent sessions.
Assessment strategy and rationale
In this unit, a supervisor-guided reflecting-team of no more than 6 members is re-established. The reflecting team is a well-established and effective clinical and supervisory format that is designed to be of benefit to both clients and therapists, and because of the reflective process and discussion of both the clients’ experience and the therapist’s practices, new understanding emerge and provide you with advanced level live supervised practice. This unit is delivered concurrently with FTHY608 Systemic Attachment Processes & Neuroscience, which provides you with the systemic attachment and neuroscience frameworks and a descriptive language to generate systemic conceptualisation and useful formulations. This unit involves 35 hours of reflecting-team and clinical teamwork supervised by senior supervisors, delivered in an intensive mode of 2-3 day workshops. You and your clinical team are supported and guided in identifying your process of acquiring and integrating FST competencies and in using research-informed conceptual frameworks. The reflecting team process includes detailed feedback to you when you are the therapist, and feedback to your reflecting team. You and your team will record, analyse and evaluate therapy sessions, identify in-the-moment decision-making processes and focus on generative and challenging moments. You and the team will discuss and reflect on challenges you faced with that particular client system and plan the subsequent sessions.
ASSESSMENT STRATEGY AND RATIONALE
The three assessment procedures used in this unit are consistent with University assessment requirements, meet the unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes. The first assessment is a hurdle task and the other two assessments are ungraded tasks with feedback.
Task 1, Record and review live supervision and feedback from clinical work, Hurdle
Recording live supervision and feedback of your clinical work is an essential task which you will use in Tasks 2 & 3. The act of recording and reviewing your clinical work and subsequent feedback allows you to learn to overcome the confronting and difficult feelings that emerge when we view ourselves and free yourself to be more attentive to the precise details of the process in the session. This task allows to learn to become attentive, curious and engaged in the fine detail of what transpires in the process of therapy, and you discover that there are multiple layers of process occurring in the session, many of which you were not aware while conducting the session. You can identify and reflect on the subtle and pivotal moments, the emotional reactions and experiences of the members of the family, and learn about their and your automatic responses in these moments. Such moments often pass quickly, and while we may sense something has happened they take deliberate review and practice to notice and utilize in therapy sessions. Noticing and recognizing such moments in retrospect, is the beginning of the learning process and alerts you to the conversations which evoked them and importance they had in the unfolding experiences. In subsequent sessions you can refer back to these experiences, however by recording, reviewing and reflecting on these moments, you can become more skilled in deliberately evoking and/or utilizing them when they occur. Reviewing your sessions also develops your capacity to manage your emotional reactions and improve flexibility, manage anxiety and deliberately improve your emotional self-regulation, and develop your clinical decision-making. The process of recording and reviewing contributes to improving your cognitive-relational functioning, developing your capacity to manage your attentional resources and memory process, so that you can notice and recall sequences of interaction and place your attention on important relational episodes. This task also builds your confidence and awareness of your unique personal knowledge, your capacity to share and enact your expertise in collaborative engagement in systemic process. This task has been found to facilitate development of the complex constellation of cognitive–affective competencies which under-pin development of automaticity of therapeutic responses, and sound clinical decision-making in the heat of the moment.
Task 2, In-depth session analysis (2,000 words), Ungraded with Feedback
This in-depth analysis requires you to take yourself back, immerse yourself into pivotal moments in the session and analyse your in-the-moment experience, and subsequent observation about the way you managed that moment. Reflective analysis of key moments allows you to mentally-rehearse other options and or acknowledge moments of sound decision making, further integrating these segments with post-session reflection from clients, peers, supervisor and if appropriate, formal outcome measures. The act of sequencing these in-the-moment observations into a coherent in-depth written narrative contributes to the quality and depth of the learning experience, and builds your procedural knowledge and clinical confidence. The task becomes a profound learning experience and facilitates your development as a researcher-practitioner family and systemic therapist.
Task 3, Clinical review and evaluation of a sequence of therapy session using case-study method, Ungraded with Feedback
The case-study research method provides you with pragmatic and accessible guidelines on conducting structured and systematic research within your clinical role, in a way that significantly benefits your clients. It is valid tool for thoughtfully applying well-reasoned and ethically sound interventions and systematically investigating the quality of outcome. This task facilitates the development of both your FST competencies and investigative and analytic skills of a practitioner-researcher Family therapist. It is well established that conducting case-based research with your own cases develops you as both a competent research-informed practitioner and practitioner-researcher. It provides you a methodology to grow in Family and Systemic Therapy competencies and contribute to the body of knowledge on delivering effective family and systemic therapy
Overview of assessments
| Brief Description of Kind and Purpose of Assessment Tasks | Weighting | Learning Outcomes | Graduate Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|
Record and review live supervision and feedback from clinical work Record and review your live supervision session, including the team discussion and feedback. Review and analyse a particular session at least three times, stopping the at pivotal moments recommended by your colleagues or supervisor, and moment you experienced as significant or challenging, and record your inner comments, impression, sensations and reflection, which occurred while you were in the session. Also record your subsequent post-session thoughts and impressions. | Hurdle | LO2, LO3 | GA4, GA5, |
In-depth session analysis (2,000 words) Select a particularly important session and conduct an In-depth session analysis, using the material generated in while reviewing your sessions. Identify key moments, decision-making junctions, and recall and record you inner-conversation that occurred at the time. Reflect on your in-the-moment thoughts and feeling and consider the effectiveness of your automatic responses and the decision you made at the time. Consider how you might improve or manage the moments differently in future. | 50% Ungraded with Feedback | LO2,LO3 | GA4, GA5 |
Clinical review and evaluation of a sequence of therapy session using case-study research method (2,000 words) Using the case study method guidelines, collect, review, analyse and evaluate a sequence of at least 4 FST sessions. | 50% Ungraded with Feedback | LO1, LO2 | GA1, GA3, GA4, GA5, GA7, GA8, GA9 |
Representative texts and references
Anderson, H. & Gerhart, D. (Eds) 2007 Collaborative Therapy: Relationships and Conversations that Make a Difference, NY, Routledge.
Carr, A. 2012, Family Therapy: Concepts, Process and Practice, NY, Wiley-Blackwell.
Gerhart, D., (2014) Mastering Competencies in Family Therapy: A Practical Approach to Theory and Clinical Case Documentation 2nd Ed, Belmont, CA, Brooks/Cole.
Lambert, M.J., Prevention of Treatment Failure: The use of Measuring, Monitoring and Feedback in Clinical Practice, Washington, APA.
Lipchik, E. (2002). Beyond technique in solution focused therapy. Guilford, New York.
McLeod, J. (2012) Case Study Research, London, Sage.
Seikkula, J. & Trimble, D. 2005, Healing Elements of Therapeutic Conversation: Dialogue as an Embodiment of Love, Family Process, Vol 44, December, 461–475