Editorial: Family Therapy and the Mental Health Professions Across the Globe

• Author: Jay L. Lebow
• Published date: 01 June 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12460
• Date: 01 June 2019

JUNE 2019 VOLUME 58 NUMBER 2

Editorial: Family Therapy and the Mental Health

Professions Across the Globe

JAY L. LEBOW*

Fam Proc 58:269–272, 2019

While attending a recent meeting of the International Family Therapy Association, I

attended an interesting workshop conducted by members of the United Kingdom’s

Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice about the practice of couple and

family therapy in the United Kingdom. In this very instructive workshop, the presenters

summarized who can and does practice family therapy in various systems in the United

Kingdom. As I learned about practice in the United Kingdom, it struck me that we need

much more of this kind of instruction across borders to understand the pragmatics of the

practice of couple and family therapy in different places.

Family Process is a journal that was founded as an outlet for writing related to systemic

theory, research, and practice. Informing the practice of relational therapy and interven-

tion has always been a central goal. Toward those ends, we have publishe d many articles

about family theory (Asen & Fonagy, 2017; Patterson, Edwards, & Vakili, 2018), family

science (B

amaca-Colbert et al., 2017; Bos, Kuyper, & Gartrell, 2017; Knobloch-Fedders,

Critchfield, & Staab, 2017), methods of intervention (Casey et al., 2017; Distelberg et al.,

2018; Karam, Sterrett, & Kiaer, 2017), family assessment (Carr & Stratton, 2017; Hunger

et al., 2017; Sparks & Duncan, 2018), family problem s (Paprocki & Baucom, 2017; Rauer,

Williams, & Jensen, 2017; Rolland, 2017), family forms (Ganong & Coleman, 2018; Paper-

now, 2018), family resilience (Walsh, 2016), cultural context (ChenFeng, Kim, Wu, &

Knudson-Martin, 2017; Maga~

na, Lopez, & Machalicek, 2017), the efficacy of family inter-

ventions (Carr, Hartnett, Brosnan, & Sharry, 2017; Madsen, Tomfohr-Madsen, & Doss,

2017; McFarlane, 2016), supervision (Rober, 2017), family narratives (Rober & Rosenblatt,

2017; Weingarten & Worthen, 2017), and so many other vitally important foci. Yet, only

rarely do our field and Family Process speak to the complex issues that surround who

practices couple and family therapy, the licensure of couple and family therapists, and

what is meant by couple and family therapy in different locations.

*Editor, Family Process, and Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL .

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jay L. Lebow, Family Institute at North-

western, 618 Library Place, Evanston, IL 60201. E-mail: j-lebow@northwestern.edu.

269

Family Process, Vol. 58, No. 2, 2019 ©2019 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12460