AFTA Blog
AFTA's blog on progressive views on family centered, couple, and family therapy practices and policies.
Caging Children: US Policy Traumatizes the Most Vulnerable
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This inscription on the Statue of Liberty has been a beacon to the world. Lately, it has become conditional, with an addendum like, “Offer may vary” or “Huddled masses from Norway...
read moreLetter from Outgoing AFTA President Jane Bardavid
Dear AFTA Members: As my term as president comes to an end, I want to thank all of you for your support and commitment to the work of AFTA. I feel honored and privileged to have served. Over the past several years, AFTA has faced enormous challenges - both internally...
read moreFamily therapy in the age of global mental health: Long live Shoufi-Mafi!
While family therapists may have skills that enhance the capacity to contextualize the suffering of the clients, supervisees, or trainees we work with, in global mental health one must be able to do this in relation to the broader political and economic factors in the country.
read moreCould I Be Unintentionally Hijacking My Work with Couples?
Learn how couples therapists can be reinforcing gender discourses unintentionally.
read moreNew Couples Therapy Approach Centers Societal Context and Mutual Support
Therapists know that sociocultural contexts such as gender, sexual orientation, culture, race, and class are important, but most practice models offer few guidelines for how to actually address these issues. The newly released AFTA Springer Brief Socio-Emotional...
read moreThe Intertwined Link Between Mental Health and All Aspects of Health
***Originally published at Mental Health Innovation Network*** Every Tuesday afternoon, my family therapy trainees and I meet to see clients at our university supported family therapy clinic. Yesterday, Simone,* a woman in her late 40s who was once a legal...
read moreFour Ways to Change The Culture of #Shame
“What does shaming create?” How do we create the results without shame?
read moreWhat if…? All the children by Joyce Maguire Pavao
What if we filed the federal and Arizona equivalent of a Massachusetts 51A on the government for abuse and neglect of those children who are piled up in warehouses for what seems like months now? What if we then did as we do when children are removed for abuse and...
read moreAFTA’s Position Statement on Immigration
AMERICAN FAMILY THERAPY ACADEMY POSITION STATEMENT June 2004 THE DELETERIOUS IMPACT OF U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY ON FAMILIES We, the American Family Therapy Academy, are alarmed by the impact of United States immigration policy and enforcement. We believe that as a...
read more“You can’t manipulate the snake!”
“You can’t manipulate the snake!” The student I’m speaking with after class keeps coming back to this point, as he tries to get me to understand his thoughts about nature vs. nurture. I had just given a guest lecture in a psychology class at San Quentin, the infamous...
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