ANZJFT Web-users’ Newsletter
May 2007
www.anzjft.com
Editors Hugh and Maureen Crago
Attachment Theory: Research and Practice
This June, the ANZJFT will bring you its second special issue focusing on attachment. If you’ve been used to talking vaguely about attachment, our special issues on attachment will perhaps surprise you when you find how precise the attachment discussion can become.
Jackie Amos, Simon Beal and Gareth Furber present a case study, ‘Parent and Child Therapy (PACT) In Action: An Attachment Based Intervention for a Six Year Old with a Dual Diagnosis’, which takes Heather Chambers’ approach from its native New Zealand and shows that it works just as well in Adelaide! It is very moving to read of the dreadful predicament in which the mother and child client find themselves, and of their slow progress towards feeling safe and happy with one another.
Heather Chambers’ approach builds in slow and careful steps, but the work of which Kasia Kozlowska writes begins under pressure, when the family is told that their three-year-old must either have surgery to acquire an external bladder, or they can try Psychological Medicine. The family has refused the Psychological Medicine option once before, and Kasia’s team feel the need to get results quickly. Under these circumstances, Kasia’s team assess for attachment, using the Dynamic-Maturational Model, discover information about the family that has not emerged in any of the prior consultations, and assist the family through the impasse. Little Emma can soon pass urine normally. Along the way, Kasia reminds us of the Bowenian intergenerational approach, and briefly reports on the prevalence of conversion symptoms in Australian children.
A third child whose story will cause you to reach for the tissues is that of Janine, born at 24 weeks gestation, with multiple medical complications. Shannon O’Gorman coaches the parents to sing to their child, incorporating Janine’s name into the melody, ‘infant-directed singing’. Shannon observes how positively the parent and the baby respond to this simple act.
Liz Mackenzie in conversation with Hugh Crago talks about various stages on her journey as an Adelaide family therapist. She speaks of her experience as manager of a specialist foster/residential care program, drawing on attachment theory. Her description of the difficulties she and her staff encountered, and of the efforts they made to support each other and the children, is tantalisingly brief.
Patricia McKinsey Crittenden, Angelika Hartl Claussen & Kasia Kozlowska contribute a research paper which evaluates three different models of attachment assessment. At present, in Australia, research and treatment, which claim to be attachment-based, seem often to rely on commonsense judgments of a client’s attachment status. Once clinicians move beyond the ‘seat-of-the-pants’ assessment approach, we shall see increasing attention being given to the validity of assessment methods.
The Brisbane research team of Ian M. Shochet, Tanya Smyth and Ross Homel, in ‘The Impact of Parental Attachment on Adolescent Perception of the School Environment and School Connectedness’ attempt to sort out how much a child’s feelings about school have to do with Mum and Dad, and how much is up to the school. Young people are required to stay at school for so long. Adolescence is such a key time for mental health problems to emerge… How can schools help? Read on.
Maureen Crago
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The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (ANZJFT)
The Journal and a National Association
19 April 2007
The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy has been the professional publication for family therapy in Australia, as well as New Zealand for almost 30 years. Since 1980, the Journal has been the only national publication that has provided a national focus for family therapists, and indeed represented family therapy internationally. Enshrined in the Journal’s Constitution are the aims now proposed by the Working Group of the Australian Association of Family Therapy (AAFT): to promote and foster the theory and practice of family therapy throughout Australia and New Zealand, and to initiate and encourage, via the Journal and otherwise, discussion of all issues relevant to the theory and practice of family therapy. In recognition that this role was more appropriately assumed by a national association, in 2003 the Board of the Journal at the time moved to initiate this process.
As a professional organisation, AAFT requires a professional journal for every member, to disseminate knowledge, promote research and foster community education and professional standards of practice.
The current Board of the Journal wishes to endorse the following:
· The Board of the ANZJFT unequivocally supports the formation of AAFT.
· The Board also unequivocally endorses the role of the Journal as the professional publication of AAFT.
· Every member of AAFT should obtain the Journal as part of their membership.
Barbara Fraser, President
Chris Hunt, Vice President
Marten Johns, Secretary
Linda Mackay, Treasurer
Maureen and Hugh Crago, Editors
Alistair Campbell
Roxanne Garven
Adrienne Martin
Paul Rhodes
Rick Whiteside
Catherine Sanders, Immediate Past President
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