Editorial: The Expanding World of Couple and Family Therapy

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12295
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Date: 01 June 2017
• Author: Jay L. Lebow

JUNE 2017 VOLUME 56 NUMBER 2

Editorial: The Expanding World of Couple and

Family Therapy

JAY L. LEBOW*

Fam Proc 56:281–284, 2017

Recently, I have had the good fortune to attend family therapy events in Europe and

Asia. Most notable was the International Systemic Research Conference hosted in

Heidelberg by Jochen Schweitzer and Matthias Ochs. This conference included three days

of fascinating presentations focused on research having to do with family therapy con-

ducted principally in Europe. The conference was very well attended including 30 family

therapists from various parts of China accompanying Xudong Zhou. This came only a few

months after the large triennial meeting of the European Family Therapy Association

headed by Maria Borsca in Athens Greece and a visit I made to the Chinese University of

Hong Kong where I connected with members of the Asian Academy of Family Therapy

(which also has an excellent annual meeting) including Joyce Ma and Wai-Yung Lee.

What is apparent from these contacts is that family therapy and family science, once the

purview of a few isolated institutes mostly located in the United States, is very much

thriving internationally and across the spectrum of institutions.

The mix of couple and family therapy is somewhat different in other places in the world

than in North America. Whereas couple and family therapy in the United States has

mostly migrated from free-standing family institutes to university settings and clinical

sites (Breunlin, 2016; Breunlin & Jacobsen, 2014; Rampage, 2014), institute training sites

are flourishing elsewhere. And while couple and family therapy is mostly subsumed under

the licenses of guild organizations such as psychology, marriage and family therapy, and

social work in the United States, approval by health systems for payment for treatment in

many parts of the world focuses on the kind of therapy rather than the provider. This lat-

ter fact has emphasized the need for evidence in support of systemic practice so that fam-

ily therapies can qualify for reimbursement in health systems (Retzlaff, von Syd ow,

Beher, Haun, & Schweitzer, 2013). This has led to a good deal of work in Europe in partic -

ular to establish the evidence base for systemic therapies (Darwiche & de Roten, 2015;

Retzlaff et al., 2013; von Sydow, Retzlaff, Beher, Haun, & Schweitzer, 2013; Von Sydow,

*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

281

Family Process, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2017 ©2017 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12295