INTRODUCTION

The Ackerman Institute for the Family

The Ackerman Institute for the Family (formerly the Family Institute and currently also known as the Ackerman Institute, or simply ‘The Ackerman’) is one of the oldest family therapy institutes in the US and the world, having earned a preeminent reputation for its innovative clinical services and training and research initiatives. It was established by psychiatrist Dr Nathan Ackerman in 1960. Born in Russia, the young Nathan moved to the US with his family at the age of 4. Initially trained as a classical psychoanalyst, he later became interested in incorporating systemic insights into group settings by seeing patients and families within the group. Following the Second World War, he initiated his support for the role of family in therapy and spent his entire career advocating for the advancement and acceptance of family therapy as a therapeutic modality. He argued that the psychological well-being of the individual was directly a result of, and related to, the condition of the family (Ackerman, 1958, 1966, 1970).

In spreading the news about its benefits, Ackerman showed movies demonstrating this new method, pioneering not only a new type of therapy but also the tradition of the audiovisual documentation of clinical work which became one of the cornerstones of family therapy training (Ackerman, 1982).

In 1962, Nathan Ackerman joined forces with Don Jackson and Jay Haley in creating the journal Family Process. As a joint initiative of the Ackerman Institute for the Family and the Mental Research Institute, Family Process was established as the first journal supporting academic activities in family therapy. It continues to be one of the most respected journals in the field. Three of the past six editors of Family Process have been Ackerman faculty members (AIFTF, 2024). As the 6th editor between 2004 and 2012, Dr Evan Imber-Black also served as faculty of the Ackerman Institute from 1995 to 2021. She was highly influential during her tenure, responsible for the publication of both clinical and research issues on such topics as divorce and Latino families. During this time, the first translations into Spanish appeared along with translated abstracts into Chinese. At the time of writing this paper, Dr Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez, of Puerto-Rican heritage, was newly appointed as the editor of Family Process, affirming the importance of diversity and celebrating diverse cultures in the journal.

Throughout the history of the Ackerman, led by numerous and diverse directors, the Institute developed and expanded its clinical and training programs. It also developed and expanded on projects meeting the needs of specific populations, supporting families with AIDS, foster care and adoption, infertility, gender and violence, and children with special needs. These projects in turn influenced the training and clinical approaches (AIFTF, 2024).

The Institute also developed a number of centres. In 1990, under the directorship of Peter Steinglass, the Institute incorporated its projects into five thematic centres all of which provided training opportunities, programs, and services: The Center for the Developing Child and Family, The Center for Work and Family, The Center for Substance Abuse and the Family, The Center for Children and Relational Trauma, and The Center for Families and Health, which Dr Imber-Black directed for 15 years (AIFTF, 2024).

The Ackerman Institute for the Family offers innovative clinical services for couples and families; on-site and online state-of-the-art training programs for national and international professionals, as well as research initiatives that focus on the development of new treatment models and training techniques. The clinic sees various family formations and backgrounds, including traditional nuclear families, single-parent families, step-families, gay and transgender families, and families representing all socio-economic, religious, ethnic, cultural, and racial groups (AIFTF, 2024).

A key characteristic of the Ackerman is its commitment to diversity in all its forms, at all levels, having increasingly celebrated diversity and inclusion over the years. This can be observed in the programs which have been created, in the training courses available, in the staff who work in the various services and programs, and in the diversity of families who access the services, whose specific needs are catered for at the Ackerman. Cultural diversity is particularly important for the Ackerman given it provides responsive and culturally relevant services for every family. A relevant initiative highlighting this was the Social Work and Diversity Program which The Ackerman developed in 1992, from which many minority group family therapists have graduated. A large percentage of those who teach at Ackerman or hold positions in community agencies are from minority groups where they are able to influence policy decisions and clinical practice (AIFTF, 2024).

About Dr Evan Imber-Black

Dr Imber-Black is a past president of the American Family Therapy Academy. Her professional experience spans over 46 years, having made an extremely valuable contribution to the field of family therapy. She has a robust connection to the Ackerman Institute, having dedicated 26 years of her professional life there. She served as a faculty member of the Ackerman from 1995 to 2021. During the last 15 years of her tenure, from 2006 to 2021, she served as Director of the Ackerman Center for Families and Health, which she helped establish.

Evan is also former Director of the Family and Group Studies Program, providing systemic training to psychiatric residents, and founder and director of the Urban Institute for Families and Family Therapy at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. This innovative institute provided family systems training for front-line mental health workers who were called upon to see people in the most difficult family situations with no training to do so. She is a former professor in the Department of Psychiatry at ‘The Einstein’ and still holds affiliation there. Evan is currently a professor and Program Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Master's Program at Mercy University.

Evan served as editor of the prestigious journal Family Process for 8 years, between 2004 and 2012. She was highly influential in championing diversity and being responsible for the publication of topics including Latin families as part of both clinical and research components. It was also during her tenure that the first translations into Spanish appeared along with translated abstracts into Chinese. Evan continues her involvement at Family Process with The New Writers' Fellowship Program, mentoring and teaching the craft of scholarly writing to family therapy students, recent graduates, and (new to writing) practitioners. Papers are aimed at social justice and systemic issues and scholars involved originate from a diversity of cultural groups.

She has written extensively in key areas of practice. Two, in particular stand out, which she is specifically known for, being family secrets and family rituals. She has authored over 75 original papers and several books. These include The Secret Life of Families (Imber-Black, 1999), Secrets in Families and Family Therapy (Imber-Black, 1993), Rituals for Our Times, co-authored with Janine Roberts (Imber-Black & Roberts, 1998), Rituals in Families and Family Therapy, co-edited with Janine Roberts and Richard Whiting (Imber-Black, 2003 [1998]) and Families and Larger Systems (Imber-Black, 1988).

Evan was invited to present a paper at the 50th anniversary celebratory meeting of Family Process, titled The Evolution of Family Process: Contexts and Transformations. She highlighted the development and evolution of the journal in both its historical and contemporary contexts.

Evan was featured in the Family Process special issue on COVID-19 for her article, ‘Rituals in the time of COVID-19: imagination, responsiveness, and the human spirit’ (Imber-Black, 2020).

Evan was the recipient of the 1990 American Family Therapy Academy Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice. She was also the 1999 recipient of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Cumulative Contribution to Marriage and Family Therapy.

AREAS OF INTEREST

The importance of rituals

Rituals are located in time, context, and culture and have had a pivotal role in humanity and across cultures throughout history (Imber-Black, 2002). Rituals are powerful therapeutic tools and Evan has written extensively about their benefits. In doing so, she has been able to support numerous families in creating and adapting their rituals (Imber-Black, 2002). Family rituals provide us with guidance and values and give us a sense of meaning, identity, security, and belonging. They create a sense of connection to different family members and to the family while providing continuity across generations.

All cultures have rituals which anchor them from the past into the present and future. Rituals are present across the family life cycle and function to assist in the transition process, shifting and changing to reflect and make possible individual development and family relationship recalibrations. They explore child development, adolescence, family culture, and intergenerational relationships while also addressing emotion and cognition within the family (Imber-Black, 2002). It is important to recognise that each culture contains its own unique rituals which differentiate between cultures and highlight levels of importance for that culture. That is why recognising specific cultural rituals for families is crucial to better understanding and working with families.

In my own culture, my birthplace Peru, there are some family and cultural rituals which we are expected to follow as a symbol of respect and unity within our families. Culture is central to Peruvian families (though progress and technological and economic influences have had an impact on this). For the most part, Peruvian families show a high degree of unity, purpose, responsibility, and integration across generations (Amorin-Woods, 2020).

Family cycle transitions are not marked as perceived through the Western lens. The extended family is primarily viewed as the nuclear family would be viewed in Australia. For instance, it is common to have grandparents living in three-generational households. In my own experience, my grandmother lived with us until her death. Thus, there was no marked transition in moving parents into a nursing home. Another example is that of children as they moved through to the tertiary education ladder. There is no expectation to ‘launch’ as such, rather the level of responsibility expected from children changes. They may be therefore expected to contribute to the care of the younger siblings or the household. For the most part, Hispanic Peruvian families are patricentric, where families are centred on the father as the head of the household and considered the authority in the family (Church, 2010). In my household, however, given our father left early on, we were raised by a single mother who became the breadwinner (as an educator) and my maternal grandmother. This further forced a familiar and cultural recalibration in terms of composition, dynamics, and rituals.

Some of these rituals are significantly impacted by migration. This is one of the reasons why the adjustment process is highly challenging for new migrants. Depending on the ‘adopted’ country, migrant families are expected to forfeit their rituals. They are expected to take on the rituals and traditions of the new country as part of assimilation and this is predominantly the case in Australia. Migrants often report to me giving up on their core sense of identity, which gives them meaning and a sense of ‘belonging.’

Impact of lost rituals

Among other things, the role of rituals is to celebrate, heal, welcome, mourn, farewell, acknowledge family transitions, and enter a new life stage (Imber-Black, 2005).

Take, for instance, a 6-year-old girl whose mother goes to a day hospital for a routine procedure; however, she does not return. When dad comes back without mum, dad locks himself up in his room for days. The child is told by a neighbour that her mother passed away. Dad hides away his pain, and the mother and her passing are never talked about in the home.

In this scenario alone, what rituals have been missed and lost and how is this likely to impact on that family and on that child's current and future life, on her sense of identity, on her place in the world? On the meaning she gives to relationships?

Major impact of family rituals during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on individuals and families unable to transition due to the lack of these important processes and rites of passage. An elderly person unable to see their family as they move into a nursing home, a young adult graduating from university without family support, parents unable to travel interstate to provide support to a struggling daughter with severe mental health issues, later unable to travel after her death to suicide. These are real examples I have seen during the pandemic with multiple effects then and into the future.

Evan's work about rituals during this pivotal time in our lives has been helpful and validating. She made a strong contribution to the pandemic special issue for Family Process (Imber-Black, 2020), as cited in the ANZJFT COVID-19 special issue for which I was a guest editor (Amorin-Woods, 2021a, 2021b).

One case I encountered in my work during the pandemic was that of a mother who had recently migrated to Australia and who had little command of English. She was told she could not have her husband in the room during the delivery, due to the mandates. Upon delivery she was told, there is a major abnormality with the baby, so baby is whisked away as the medical staff had to perform immediate surgery to save his life. Thus, the mother was not allowed to see her baby and neither did she have the support of her husband. So how is this mother, the husband, their baby, and this family impacted by this ‘ritual-less’ multi-layered experience?

Beneath family secrets

While the type of information and the function secrets serve vary dramatically, they live in and form part of every family, whether they are light and mundane secrets, or damaging, destructive ones. Shame, fear, or judgement are powerful motives for keeping destructive secrets hidden under lock and key, particularly when it comes to damaging, toxic, and destructive secrets such as sexual abuse, which can be easily concealed, never discussed, and rarely reported.

These kinds of secrets have the power to paralyse or annihilate the victim, or the person at the centre of them. It negates that person's story and lived experience. Building a house laid over bodies buried beneath without ever acknowledging or discussing what lies there will likely prevent the person from connecting with self, and with others, from moving forward and seeing the horizon, no matter how splendid the view may appear from the summit. Yet in gently opening up at the right time, in a safe place, a person can be introduced to a more validating and realistic scenario, where helplessness can turn into hopefulness, and isolation into connection, all the while honouring the experience of pain, wounding, and loss, lying beneath the secret.

How to approach secrets in the therapeutic space

As part of the process of working with the challenging area of secrets, Evan Imber-Black has highlighted the dissatisfaction she has experienced with models that disregard the complex ecologies impacting families. She reflects on the families she worked with, she knew were coping with secrets that brought with them rich and often painful histories from their own families of origin. Stories of migration, war, sexism, and racism; tangled webs of relationships with institutions – work, schools, hospitals, churches, and synagogues; and embeddedness in a wider culture that shaped their beliefs about secrecy and openness (Imber-Black, 1993, p. 8).

Evan, like many therapists, as part of our training and mentorship, has often received contradictory advice about handling secrets in the therapeutic space. She had been taught to never allow individual members to contact her between family sessions, due to the possibility they may tell her a secret. In fact, she had been instructed to inform families of their initial contact, to refrain from telling her secrets as she would be obliged to insist that they are shared with the whole family (Imber-Black, 1999, p. 11). Through the process of time and conscious reflection, Evan soon realised that this was an untenable approach, given the therapy room was the very place where ‘silent voices’ should be heard. Consequently, she dedicated much of her extensive work and exploration to developing useful responses to what she described as the ‘relationship kaleidoscope spun by secrets’ (Imber-Black, 1999, p. 9).

Background to the interview

I had been interested in holding this conversation for a long time. Evan's gift to our profession has been extensive and significant. She has been highly influential in the development, formation, and enrichment of many practitioners in our field. Evan's work has particularly captivated me, and her dedication, passion, and embracing of diversity and culture have been inspirational. Evan has also devoted much of her work to topics only a few have touched on despite their importance and multi-layered impact, as in the case of rituals. Another possibly taboo topic in systemic circles is that of secrets where Evan's efforts can be seen as incredibly courageous in focusing on what can often be an important but neglected part of therapeutic interventions.

Another reason for this conversation with Evan has been her lengthy and varied involvement in the Ackerman Institute, which like the Mental Research Institute, was a ‘birthing place’ of family therapy and sits at the core of our professional history (Amorin-Woods et al., 2022). Evan's variety of roles at the Ackerman as well as her involvement with Family Process, only highlight her deep interest and connection to our profession and her depth and breadth of knowledge. Further, and importantly, I was drawn to Evan's genuine desire and passion in standing in solidarity with those who are marginalised, and her ability to step out of what is ‘obvious’ in attempting to challenge the status quo by exploring the cultural elements of our practice. As Evan succinctly expresses, I do think examining our scholarly work in the context of our cultures is a requirement – we don't stand outside the culture, we are active participants.

So, this paper is based on a conversation I held with Evan Imber-Black, on 22 June 2023, which took place via Zoom. Evan sits in New York, while I sit on Whadjuk Noongar land in Perth, Western Australia. In this conversation, Evan and I delve into some of her personal and professional experiences. She discusses her lengthy involvement with the Ackerman Institute for Families, and with Family Process. We also discuss her key areas of interest, namely family rituals and secrets. Evan shares personal and professional insights about those who have influenced her, starting with prominent pioneers of our field, valued and dear colleagues such as Peggy Papp, her devoted students originating from diverse walks of life, and different corners of world, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, her beloved late husband Lascelles.

THE CONVERSATION

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Evan, it is an absolute delight to connect with you. It is a privilege for me that you accepted my invitation to have a chat.

Evan Imber-Black: Thank you. And it is my honour to be with you.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: One of the things I would like to start off with is your connection with the Ackerman Institute. When I think of the Ackerman Institute, I think of the valuable work it has done over the years from the initial stages of our field. What also comes to mind is your involvement with the Ackerman, which I am aware has been extensive and extremely valuable. Your enormous contribution as a faculty member, alongside some of the other influential and very memorable members. Peggy Papp, for instance, who was, I believe, not only a professional collaborator, but also a dear friend of yours, who passed away only a couple of years ago.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, well, not even that long ago.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: You shared a beautiful and heartfelt thought in Peggy's memory: “Long before anyone was speaking about ‘therapist's use of self,’ Peggy managed to convince her quite famous contributors to reveal their struggles and their successes, originating our field's ethic of transparency” (Imber-Black, 2021).

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, that was true. She was very special. I miss her very, very much. I miss our work together, our conversations, our trips to Broadway and more.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Such a big loss in your personal and professional life. Other important names that come up for me are Lynn Hoffman, Peggy Penn, and Olga Silverstein, to name a few. What can you tell us about the Ackerman Institute, your involvement and connections there and how long were you in the various roles.

Evan Imber-Black: I worked at Ackerman from 1995 to 2021. My time at Ackerman was largely spent teaching trainees, using live supervision and the one-way mirror to a team of advanced trainees. During the last 15 years, I directed the Center for Families and Health, which I helped found.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: I see, so you directed the Center for Families and Health and I believe that this centre was among other four or perhaps five different programs altogether, is that right?

Evan Imber-Black: Probably even more than that, but I am not sure. One of the wonderful things about Ackerman is that if you had a good idea, and you were willing to put in the work, you could set something up. And so, there were many, many projects, many centres, and so forth.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: That is very encouraging. So, how did it kick start? How did your involvement with the Ackerman Institute come about?

Evan Imber-Black: I worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry for 10 years, from 1986 to 1996, training psychiatric residents and psychology doctoral students to do family systems therapy. Then came a time when it was time for me to move on. Peter Steinglass was the director of Ackerman then. He had wanted me to come to Ackerman, and I decided it would be a good idea. So, I shifted from the Albert Einstein to the Ackerman. I then began what was a 20-year period in my career there, while at the same time, for the second 10 years, becoming the program director and professor at Mercy College School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, where I directed the Marriage and Family Therapy Program, a role which I still hold today.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Your contribution is extensive, you have been involved in so many areas at the Ackerman Institute, the Albert Einstein College, the Mercy College (University). The list goes on and on. We owe you a great deal of appreciation for your generosity in our field. Your work has taken a pivotal stage in my own journey. I know a lot of our colleagues, watching this video would relate to what I am saying, because your contribution has been far-reaching, and so when I think of Evan Imber-Black, I think about someone who is curious, inquisitive, creatively innovative, genuinely interested, and who really cares. Of course, we need to add to this, your valuable contribution as editor of Family Process, for quite a few years, I believe.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, I was the editor of Family Process for 8 years from 2004 to 2012. One of the things at the Ackerman that I think your listeners, viewers would be interested in is the work I did with Peggy Papp. I did a 10-year collaboration with her. We worked on a few areas, particularly family themes and beliefs. And that ended up with a paper that was published in Family Process on family themes (Papp & Imber-Black, 1996). And we did a traditional family therapy setup. Either she was in the room, and I was behind the one-way mirror or vice versa. It was just the two of us working together for 10 years, and it was just wonderful.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: That is great. Were you two already close, or was it throughout the passage of time that she became a friend as well as a colleague and a collaborator?

Evan Imber-Black: We were getting to know each other, and then this work really brought us very, very close.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: I imagine, it would have been kind of fun working with your friend as well?

Evan Imber-Black: Exactly, because she was beyond a colleague.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Is there anything you would like to share about that contribution? Anything that stands out, about your work with Peggy?

Evan Imber-Black: Oh, gosh, there are so many things! You know, one of the things that was just always so delightful to me was watching her work in a room. My being behind the one-way mirror and just seeing her incredible creativity, willing to take risks with a new idea, and just always inspired me, I would say.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: It seems you complemented each other.

Evan Imber-Black: I guess. I think so, yeah … and we had a lot of fun.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: There is nothing better than having fun in the process of learning and teaching.

Evan Imber-Black: That is right, and mentoring.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: So, how long did you work as director in the Center for Families and Health program? There were other contributors who were involved too, were not there?

Evan Imber-Black: Correct. Well, I was 26 years at The Ackerman altogether and from 2006 to 2021 I directed the Center for Families and Health program. I collaborated with many at the Ackerman, and when I left, I handed the reins to Andrea Blumenthal. You know the pandemic, of course, shut Ackerman down. It shut everything down from one day to the next. It was quite incredible. I did not see a good way to do therapy during the pandemic, through one-way mirror work. Now, that is not to say that there were not people doing that at Ackerman because there were, and it was amazing. I consulted on one case, and I could not quite believe that we were sort of quote “behind the mirror,” however, there was no mirror. We were watching online and able to confer with one another while the therapist was in the “room” with the family. So, technology made it possible. Had there been a pandemic, without the technology we have today, everything would have just shut down completely. Instead, I was able to teach all my courses at Mercy. We went from one day to the next, from in-person to online. I had never used Zoom before, so I had to do some pretty quick studying and learning how to do it.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Yes, it was certainly a big shock to our system, it came completely out of left field. We were forced to adapt the resources we had available or create new resources and contend with new and different ways to function personally and professionally (Amorin-Woods et al., 2021). It greatly impacted every area of our life, the way we are, the way we relate and do things, introducing unpredictability and taking away the notion of permanency. It introduced many changes, and of course one of the major challenges was the impact on rituals, which we will be getting into very soon. Rituals of course are much of your focus, and one of my favourite areas of your work. We just needed to change unexpectedly, just like that.

Evan Imber-Black: Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: I believe you wrote this amazing piece (Imber-Black, 2020), a special article during the pandemic, about new ways of thinking and innovative ways of following your theme, how you think and how you have thought throughout the years. And, you know, innovation has been something that has been very much with you and with the way you do things.

Evan Imber-Black: Yeah, and I think we were a field that broke away from a particular way of working in terms of psychoanalysis, to do something very radical. You know, Freud had said: Never talk to anybody else in the family, never have a family member in the room, and so forth and blah, blah, blah. And here along comes family therapy. I am not part of that first generation. I am not quite that old! You know, that was a time when first-generation family therapists were just doing something so amazingly radical. Then the second generation, of which I am a part, sort of, took off the mantle and continued to figure out new ways of working, new ways of training the next generation and writing about it.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: What may those have been? What are those things that you wrote and focused on in your article because I know what you have written about and what you have done in your career, has been, I am trying to look for the right word. As a Latin woman, particularly, I like using adjectives to describe people's approaches, a disrupter! In the way you have led teams, in the way you have worked (with clients and students) challenging the status quo, innovatively searching for new ideas emerging. I know you had a recent student graduation from Mercy College which was inspirational.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, we did it. It was wonderful.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: I am aware that a few years back, as you said, you were suddenly presented with this giant task, a major project for the 50th anniversary of Family Process. That was in 2011, I believe you were given the amazing task of putting together 50 years of the evolution of Family Process (Imber-Black, 2011).

Evan Imber-Black: Yeah, it was wonderful. My paper, “The evolution of family process: contexts and transformations,” was given at the 50th anniversary meeting of Family Process (Imber-Black, 2011). In it, I place the development of the journal in both its historical and contemporary contexts. It was a joy to both write and deliver. As I said in the paper, I reviewed 2000 abstracts to develop the ideas in the paper. I do think examining our scholarly work in the context of our cultures is a requirement – we do not stand outside the culture – we are active participants.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: That is impressive. Naturally, there has been such an evolution and so many different changes throughout the years in terms of the environment, the political context, in terms of culture and race, family formations and a lot of rich material, eliciting the writing which would have come through over the five decades in terms of research and clinical practice. And it needs to be that way anyway. The material must be responsive to the changes we go through.

Evan Imber-Black: One of the things that I really love that I am continuing to do for Family Process is that once a year, I provide training for new writers. People from all over submit an idea that they are going to work on. There is a committee (I am not part of it), that chooses 10 young scholars who send me a completed manuscript in the summer. They are about to arrive in my mailbox pretty soon, and then we meet in September for a day and a half to discuss the art of scholarly writing. And I just so thoroughly enjoy it. There are people from all over the world. Some are doctoral students, and some are new and junior faculty. We then meet four times during the year for short periods to see what is happening with their manuscripts and what publications they are able to get done. So, it is just a delight for me to see the movement of the next generation.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: What a privilege, that is so inspiring. I imagine that would certainly keep your interest going …

Evan Imber-Black: Yeah, that is for sure! I left the editorship role at Family Process in 2011 and I have done that with these scholars every year since then.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: That is pretty special, so good to hear. The fact that they come from different walks of life, including different cultural backgrounds I imagine. I particularly resonate with that as a Peruvian-born woman who migrated to Australia 40 years ago this year (coming virtually as a child and ‘growing up’ here). Such an evolution. These opportunities allow us connecting with others in our world and support us in teasing out how we see the world, and ourselves in the world. And, what comes to mind is rituals and what this looks like in terms of migration as well. The impact of migration is massive. I hear with fondness your heartfelt expression when you are referring to these students and your excited anticipation when receiving their manuscripts in the mail, connecting you with the world again, even though COVID, and with the next generation. Actually, one of the things that pleases me about the Ackerman Institute is that they have increasingly brought in a more diverse theme. I really value that because it is evolved and that is one of the things that you mentioned in your 50th anniversary piece you wrote (Imber-Black, 2011). That is true evolution. I am quite curious and interested in talking to you about that. I am really glad to hear it (also as a migrant) as you know, we need to ensure that we are not working in monocultural ways when in reality we are a diverse community. In fact, just about 50% of the population here in Australia is from different cultural backgrounds.

Evan Imber-Black: I did not know that.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Yes, so we need to be mindful and responsive in the way we run our practice, the way we teach, the way we conduct research. It needs to be responsive to that. I know that is something that you are committed to, and I really value that. Perhaps, it is timely to move to the area of rituals and I guess you mentioned earlier about COVID and how that changed things (Amorin-Woods, 2021a). I know you wrote an article for Family Process, during the midst of COVID (Imber-Black, 2020). Between 2020 and 2021, I penned some papers and edited a special COVID issue for our journal, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (Amorin-Woods, 2021a; Amorin-Woods et al., 2020) and the sudden changes, as you described earlier, that took place around our world. I referenced one of your papers. I believe that it was called “Rituals in the time of Covid: imagination, responsiveness and the human spirit” (Imber-Black, 2020), So, I wonder if you can share something about that paper, the things that you found?

Evan Imber-Black: Well, rituals remain very dear to me. Our first-year students in the Masters in MFT at Mercy College do a major presentation on a ritual from their family of origin and it is one of the finest ways for students to study their own family and get to know one another first semester in a deeper way.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: What a great way to honour people’s histories and cultures while facilitating connection and unity.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, and I really very much enjoyed doing that paper on rituals for Family Process because of the impact of COVID on everything when it was really at its height and people were dying and on the impact on people’s lives. Everything from a little child’s birthday party to a wedding, to a funeral, all had to be completely changed, so that that little child’s birthday turned into waving out the window at people, not having friends with him to help him celebrate. The same thing with big weddings planned that had to be cancelled. I think one of my favourite stories in that paper is about a couple that was supposed to have a nice big wedding but had to cancel it. Nonetheless, they decided that they were going to still put their wedding clothes on, go to a church and get married that day, and they did. Then as they came out of the church, the Black Lives Matter march was going by the church right where they were. Marchers saw them. They saw marchers, and they were waving to each other and clapping. And the young couple went and joined the Black Lives Matter march. So, you know, these kinds of things are unexpected, of course, and unplanned and require of us, I think, to have a certain flexibility that, because you know, you can do all the planning in the world, but something’s going to knock it off. And so, you need to be able to be flexible and to be creative and innovative. And I think that is what has drawn me to rituals over the years because, yes, we repeat certain rituals. We have certain religious rituals that occur every year. They are never the same. They are never the same from year to year because we are different. A year later, we are not the same person that we were a year ago. So, all of that contributes, I think, to the richness of when you think about any ritual in your life, and sometimes we need to invent totally new ones.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Well, that makes so much sense Evan. I guess perhaps the pandemic has taught us to connect with our flexibility and creativity because we cannot be so static or rigid in the way we do things because as you are clearly indicating, we cannot replay the same thing, not in the same way, because things change, and we change. Things will have a brand new “nuance” every time. What a beautiful story that you shared about this couple getting married as the Black Lives Matter march was taking place. While this couple felt forced to get married, on a small scale, without family present, their wedding right there unfolded something greater, a larger scale in depth and significance as they united with their community, and their community united with them, witnessing a movement in action ending racism, discrimination, and systemic violence, deeply enriching and thoroughly memorable. As you express, the impact of the pandemic on families and rituals has been profound, people graduating without parents, families unable to travel, and being with a loved one who is in their last stage of life, children, women giving birth without their spouses. It is particularly impactful if we add another layer such as being a new migrant to Australia birthing alone. As you describe and indicate in your article, it brings to our awareness the importance of considering alternative ways of being with people and conducting therapy, stepping beyond the obvious.

Evan Imber-Black: Yeah, I think so. It is like, any challenge to us and in this case, you know, a serious illness, it helps us in some ways to draw on parts of ourselves that we did not even know were there.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Indeed … I would like to zoom into cultural rituals. Can you think of anything you would like to share in this area? You have written extensively about rituals, but also specifically about cultural rituals. As a migrant and as someone working with people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, including international students and with Indigenous Australians, I am very much drawn to, and mindful of that. I am wondering, what are some cultural rituals? I know that rituals and family formations themselves have evolved throughout the years, and perhaps they are more visible now, I would think perhaps we see a diverse range of families that we work with more openly. So can you tell us a little bit about that? About your work in this area in terms of diversity, and its evolution, in your work at the Ackerman Institute, and in Family Process, the papers that you have seen, the evolution of the diversity of family formations, intercultural families, blended families, trans families and bisexual families.

Evan Imber-Black: I think that in parts of the world right now, thankfully, there has been gradually more openness, there is more acceptance, there is more inclusion and more diversity. Of course, there are also many places where that is not true, and I think as family therapists, systems therapists, we really need to pay attention to and do something about it. While it is exciting that there is more acceptance of difference and diversity, at the same time, we need to keep in mind that there are also many, many people out there suffering from a lack of acceptance and being excluded as we speak. I truly believe that it is our role as family therapists, systems therapists to not just be therapists, but we also need to be political!

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Oh, absolutely. This is one of the many things I greatly value about you is that you are not afraid to challenge the status quo.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes. That is part of what keeps me going. Indeed, there is politics in family therapy as in every field. If we think there is no politics, or we cannot talk about politics, or we cannot bring politics into our work and into our field, then we are not realists. I think we are doing the wrong thing because we know that we cannot dismiss that side of things, we cannot disentangle the issue of diversity, including race and culture, from politics.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Absolutely, we need to see, hear, acknowledge, and be responsive. We need to speak up, if we do not see this in practice, otherwise we run the risk of falling into the trap of tokenism and condoning the behaviour. There is tokenism around our world and there are boxes we are expected to tick, based on categories we fit, to “prove” we are doing the right thing. In being seen to be “inclusive,” we may, for instance, write a paragraph in a report as part of a mission statement indicating “we are inclusive of people of all race and cultures, genders, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, abilities,” and just leave it there, just to collect dust, or we include a token person from a different cultural background in a board, yet do not hear their voice, and neither accept nor value their point of view as worthy of being heard, simply to create the impression “we are culturally inclusive.” It is not about that, we must be authentic. It is what we do, not what we write or say we do that matters. It is about truly immersing in that experience, demonstrating what we say we do meaningfully and embedding these methods into our practices and into the fabric of organisations in measurable ways, rather than because we are answerable to a higher power, in order to receive funding.

Evan Imber-Black: That is so important, that is paramount, I think. Do you know, what has dawned on me and keeps me at Mercy College? It is that our student body is extremely diverse. They are from everywhere, from different countries, from African American backgrounds, from Latin and Asian backgrounds and so forth. And so, it means that in any given year, in any given class I walk into, I am going to find such a wonderful variety of people who are coming from different backgrounds, from very different families of origin who hold different experiences and different points of view. It makes the learning so rich, just so very rich.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: I can see it would certainly enrich the learning of the students and the teachers alike. So, family rituals immerse us into the meaning-making, into transitions and lead us to understanding, to healing, to connection. When you add the element of culture, you transcend into yet another layer. At that point, many issues of consideration unfold, which creates greater movement as a result. I do not think people actually realise the enormity of rituals in family therapy.

Evan Imber-Black: Yeah, it is very rich, I think, it is a major resource for therapists, I mean, that is what we found when I started doing this work originally with my then doctoral students and now colleagues, Dick Whiting and Janine Roberts, that the rituals you are going to find in every family are going to be different. And so, here at the moment we have a holiday, Thanksgiving. You have probably heard of it. It is when I ask my students to describe what Thanksgiving is like in their home and in their family of origin, every single one of them is different. There is a sameness in the name, we have this day where we have this crazy bird, a turkey that we eat and so forth. Beyond that, the inventiveness that people bring to such a gathering is enormous. At the same time, being able to cope with losses, and I think that is what has been going on with the whole COVID situation. So, to cope with a certain kind of uncertainty that we have not had before, or if we did, we were not noticing it, that all goes into what happens to a ritual and why no ritual can be the same twice, instead of every time there is a sense of uniqueness.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Like you said, every ritual is different. Next year will be different again among each family, it is in a constant state of variation. I would like to move into the area of family secrets, the other area of your passion in which you have done a lot of work. For 40 plus years, you have worked tirelessly to develop helpful responses to what you describe as the “relationship kaleidoscope spun by secrets” (Imber-Black, 1993). So, in introducing this important part of your work, I could not go past your heartfelt acknowledgement of your beloved husband Lascelles in your book, The secret lives of families (Imber-Black, 1999). I would like to read it, but only if you are ok with this.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, sure.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: “I give my love and appreciation to my husband, Lascelles W. Black for all our learning to hold each other's secrets tenderly. Our long walks, talks, connecting secrets with racism. His careful thinking about skin colour, secrets he's inspired, work with people with AIDS, and their crucial secrets, his commitment to compassion and justice, which always encourages me. His vision that I could write this book and his generosity, which has made it possible for me” (Imber-Black, 1999).

Evan Imber-Black: Thank you. Thank you for reading that. It has been a long time since I read it, so I am very happy to hear it. You know, I think our talks that we would have because, as I said, he worked with HIV-AIDS for many years. He also worked with homelessness for many years, and it was more than inspiring to watch the kinds of things that he was able to do. When we first moved to New York and I started working in the Department of Psychiatry of Einstein, he started working in a homeless shelter. I will never forget that within a very short amount of time, he found that there was a man living in the homeless shelter whose own family of origin was living two blocks away from the homeless shelter, and no one bothered to find that out until Lascelles did and so he then worked to reconnect this man with his family. And it was that kind of work that just I mean, that I found enormously inspirational, no question about it. Certainly, with him coming from Jamaica to the United States, actually first to Canada and then to the United States, the whole question of skin colour and the secrets that people make and keep about skin colour was another very important area of our deliberations, of our discussions. That just kept inspiring me, to think more and more about secrets and what was happening for people; what are we allowed to talk about and what are we not allowed to talk about … And what does it mean to break that idea that you are not allowed to talk about something and to see what happens when you do?

Deisy Amorin-Woods: What a beautiful story! Truly special, inspirational, and connecting. Thank you for sharing it, Evan, I guess you two being from different cultures would have added to the richness of your connection and the conversations you held (secrets and others), journeying together through a life with varied stories beneath.

Evan Imber-Black: Most definitely.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: I am really sorry you lost him.

Evan Imber-Black: Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: He had a paramount importance in your life … beyond marriage.

Evan Imber-Black: Yes … for 40 years.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Indeed … I wonder what was it that fed your interest in exploring and working with family secrets?

Evan Imber-Black: I cannot put my finger on one thing, you know, I think it was finding families in therapy who were struggling with … Do I tell, don't I tell? Bringing that into the therapy room and trying to figure that out with people that just sent me off in the direction of trying to understand this very complex topic. So, working with secrets as well as working with rituals excited me. I think that, for people who are in this field and are looking for somewhere to specialise? I think you need to find something that really turns you on, something that will hold your interest and your passion for years and then work on it, then work on that. Then write about it, talk about it and confer with others about it. That is what I think each of us needs.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: What a great suggestion. Because it is important to keep our interest in our profession alive, and so we need to find that extra element, a specific area that feeds us, that keeps us interested, inspired and keeps our creative juices flowing, otherwise, we are likely to give up. In terms of secrets in the therapeutic space, I guess we get many contradictory messages in our field, arising from different schools of thought. We may be told, “there are always going to be secrets, so if you work with couples, if you work with families, and then when you have one member of the family at one point who opens up, you can't do anything you must leave it there with them.” On the other hand, you may come across a situation where you feel this secret must be revealed, and it needs to be done right away, either you open it up or it needs to be shared, because we need to be transparent in this process, and we need to do it right there and then. So, what are your views on these points?

Evan Imber-Black: Well, I think different people have different timing, different people need to talk about something or not talk about something. There was a family that Peggy and I saw together. I was the therapist in the room. They came in because of a terrible, terrible thing that had happened, which their mentally handicapped daughter had been repeatedly raped by security guards in their building. They would catch her in the elevator and would take her up to the roof, or take her down to the basement, and she kept that a secret. She kept it a secret until it turned out that she was pregnant. That is what brought them into therapy. But there was something, as we worked with them that we could see with the mother that was very troubling, and yet she would not talk about it, and we tried different ways to unpack and so on. Finally, I had an individual meeting with her. I think that is that part of our work that you have got to be flexible. You know, family therapists used to say, maybe some do still, “everybody’s got to be there. You got to have everyone in the room.” Well, not necessarily. Yes, if you see somebody by themselves, you might get handed a secret, but you are going to need to figure out what to do with it. That is what happened in this case, as I had that individual meeting with her and she disclosed to me, having been sexually abused as a young girl and never told anybody. And, you know, so this was like 40 years of holding the secret. But when she told me she did not want to bring her family in and then tell her family. So, it was going to be a question of figuring this out with her, who needed the information, who would be helped by the information. And in fact, as we started to look at it that way, she could see that for her daughter to hear this story and know that you could rise above it, I guess is the way I would put it, and live a good life was going to be extremely important. It was not overnight, it took some time, but gradually she told her husband, and she told her daughter. Then she told her son and then she told her mother. And that was the most difficult one. We did a lot of rehearsing role playing and practising because she was determined not to have her mother think that this was her fault. And so, you know, the layers of complexity that one just runs into, I do not know what else to call it when you are working with a secret, but it had to be on her time and on her terms, not on mine. So, you know, when I hear people say, “oh, I don't keep secrets,” I am going to tell you, “Well, good luck to you,” because you have to learn to be delicate and careful with timing and with people's needs as you are opening what usually are many, many layers of the secret.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Absolutely. Such important points you raise, because often there are different schools of thought on that, and often we are limited by that information. Yet when you unpack them and are mindful of doing so respectfully and safely, we are then able to broaden the view of the family to increase understanding. Otherwise, it feels as though we are working in a limited way and almost like we are not really doing work that is effective because we are not. The very secret is the rich part of the work that we are doing. So, if that is kept aside, then how come we do the work? How can we properly support this family?

Evan Imber-Black: Yes, well you know, the position that I have heard people say where they will say to families, I do not keep secrets, you know, so if you tell me. I am going to tell everybody. You are not going to hear a lot of stuff that is important then.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Yes, absolutely. I would like to move into your personal lived experience. What led you into becoming a family therapist, getting involved in clinical practice, research, and moving towards wearing the editor's hat as well? As I said earlier at the beginning of our conversation, you are such a curious and innovative person in the way you explore things and immerse in your work. You are very interested in capturing different areas in order to deepen your understanding. In doing so, you are also deepening the understanding of your students, and clinicians who you mentor. So, I wonder what was it about your personal life, that led you into the field?

Evan Imber-Black: That is a great question. I had moved to California from Chicago and had an opportunity, just randomly almost, to work with what was then called “encounter groups” and shockingly, the US government was paying for a grant for us to study encounter groups. I mean, when I think about it now, it is like the craziest thing I ever heard. So, I was in Berkeley, and we were doing these groups and I just got very excited by it and was working on a master’s degree and again studying more about group interaction. And then while fascinating and it certainly has informed a lot of my family therapy work, I began to find that stranger groups were not very satisfying to me and that I wanted to work more with actual families. And so it was that shift from working with stranger groups to working with households, working with couples, working with parents and children that I was so fascinated by. I was very lucky to get a scholarship for my PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, where I met the late Carol Anderson, who was fortuitously working across the street from where my doctoral program was bringing in at least once a month all the top leaders in family therapy in those days. So, the entire first generation who were thankfully still living then. So, I had the opportunity to go to workshops with all of these people every month for 2 years. So, all of that just came together in such a good way. Then I was able to get a position at the University of Massachusetts to teach family therapy. I stayed there 5 years, and the reason I left was that I was the only faculty member teaching family therapy. I was certain that if I stayed, I was not going to grow, and that was the beginning, and what can I say? The rest is history. I was asked by Karl Tomm to come to Calgary, Alberta. I have to say, that was the best part of it all as that is where I met Lascelles, and where we got married.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Oh, did you? That is beautiful!

Evan Imber-Black: Then we decided to come back East, come to New York, and do the things that I talked to you about earlier.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: That is really special. What an evolution. What a transformation. How it led you to your path …

Evan Imber-Black: You know, I have been very fortunate to be in a variety of settings. To have wonderful students in all those settings and to continue to grow myself because of that.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Yes … and the beauty I guess is in that union, so you have had such a diverse set of students which has enriched and let you grow in your profession. At the same time, you have openness to it because often if we are not open, if we are rigid and closed off, then we cannot allow that to rise.

Evan Imber-Black: You know this. It is about evolving. We need to evolve with our students. It is never … or rather there is not the end of the story. It is ongoing.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: It does not stop, right? We need to keep on growing until the end. So, I guess as we come towards the end of our interview, I am just wondering a couple of things. One of them is whether there is a message you want to pass on. A pearl of wisdom, if you want to call it the “Evan wisdom” that you would like to pass onto those watching/listening. I guess this would be comprised of students, family therapists in training, practicing therapists, academics, and also supervisees.

Evan Imber-Black: You have to stay open; to stay open to new thoughts and new ideas. Do not get so wedded to one way of working, because that will stop you. You are going to stop growing and you are going to lose interest. I think one of the things that our field has afforded all of us is the capacity to grow with a new family case, or a new couple case, or new ideas and models that are coming to the field. So, I think as long as you do not get rigid, things will go well. So, be constantly in movement, moving along, rather than staying stuck.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: That sounds wonderful. And lastly, how would you like to be remembered?

Evan Imber-Black: Oh, my goodness! Well, I would like to be remembered by my colleagues as a good, solid, dependable, reliable, smart colleague. I would like to be remembered by my students as someone who deeply, deeply cared about them, about their development, and about figuring out new ways for each person which will help them to grow.

Deisy Amorin-Woods: Evan, it has been an absolute pleasure having this conversation with you today. I have truly appreciated it and enjoyed it immensely.

Evan Imber-Black: I have really enjoyed this interview, thank you very much.