Red Sistémica · Family therapy
Therapy as told by families. A panorama of intergenerational research
For more than twenty-five years, the three-generational model has guided the clinical work of Maurizio Andolfi and Claudio Angelo and inspired the development of the Academy of Family Psychotherapy. This is the first time it has been applied to outcome evaluation: families contacted again by telephone or seen once more in filmed follow-up sessions recount the evolution of the problem-symptoms, the activation of family resources and the path travelled, observed across three generational levels.
“A reading in a developmental key makes it possible to consider the complexity of the changes required simultaneously.”
Maurizio Andolfi, Claudio Angelo and Paola D’Atena
Editor’s note
This text is a fragment of chapter I of the book La terapia narrata dalle famiglie. Una prospettiva di ricerca intergenerazionale, never translated into French or Spanish; the journal Perspectivas Sistémicas had published the Spanish translation in its issue 91. A second excerpt from the same chapter, devoted to emotional cutoff, temporal leaps and the theory of family stress, was published in issue 93 of the same journal and is also available here. The two texts appeared under almost identical titles; we distinguish them by their content.
Three generations in therapy: a developmental model of family therapy
The model we have referred to throughout our work has been the three-generational model.
As it was proposed by various pioneers of family therapy, among them Carl Whitaker (1989), Bowen (1978), Framo (1992) and Williamson (1982), and then elaborated by Andolfi (2000a) and by Andolfi and Angelo (1987) in numerous scientific publications.
Although this model has guided the clinical work of the latter two authors for more than twenty-five years and has inspired the development of the Academy of Family Psychotherapy (Andolfi, 1995a), this is the first time it has been applied to outcome evaluation. The families we contacted for the research, by telephone or during filmed follow-up sessions, spoke to us about the evolution of the problem-symptoms of the person for whom therapy had been requested, about the activation of family resources – both during the therapeutic process and in the years that followed – and, more generally, about the family’s journey through time, observed across three generational levels.
In short, we gathered a considerable quantity of information, based on the memory that families and therapists retained of the most significant moments of the therapy and of the problematic knots of the family group; as regards the latter, we reflected on the knots present at the time of the therapy, but above all on their evolution in the years that followed.
Key takeaway
Here the three-generational model is no longer merely a grid for clinical reading: it becomes an instrument for evaluating outcomes. What is gathered is not a measurement but a narrative – that of the families and that of the therapists – bearing on the high points of the therapy and on what became, over the years, of the problematic knots of the family group.
The research sample
We concentrated our research on situations of severe pathologies specific to adolescence: for example, from the standpoint of the history of family therapy, juvenile psychoses and major personality disturbances, as well as anorexia and bulimia, worrying forms of the social pathologies of recent decades.
Although the outcomes and the individual and family evolution of these two different groups have varied – one can recover completely from anorexia nervosa, whereas in most cases one does not recover from a psychosis, which is enough to underline a difference that is no small one – a three-generational developmental approach made us see certain similar aspects.
A reading bearing on several levels of family reality made it possible to grasp the moments in the life of the group where possible stress factors intertwine. The adolescence of the child very often coincides with the parents’ acceptance of middle age and with the retirement or death of the grandparents. A reading in a developmental key therefore makes it possible to consider the complexity of the changes required simultaneously, which may provoke or reinforce symptomatic difficulties, owing to the need to modify personal and family organizations previously acquired. According to Scabini (1985): “The growth of the family is linked to the effective overcoming of these critical events; attention is directed toward identifying the developmental tasks typical of each phase and the problems triggered by the family at moments of transition, with a view to an effective reorganization.”
The difficulty in growing up of anorexic persons – what is called, for example, the Peter Pan complex – can thus signal both the subjective conflicts of the patient and the difficulty of the whole family organism in facing the developmental tasks proper to the moment of transition…
Notes
Notes from the original
Spanish translation and adaptation: Emilio Ricci.
“Therapy as told by families”: original title of the book, unpublished in Spanish, of which Perspectivas Sistémicas publishes this first fragment of chapter I: “La terapia narrata dalle famiglie. Una prospettiva di ricerca intergenerazionale”. Series of psychotherapy with the family, directed by Maurizio Andolfi. Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan, Italy, 2001.
(1, 2 and 3) Refer to cases developed in other chapters of the book mentioned, unpublished in Spanish to date.
(Read the complete text in Perspectivas Sistémicas no. 91, at newsstands, in bookshops or by subscription.)
Who the authors are
Maurizio Andolfi is a child neuropsychiatrist and family psychotherapist. He is full professor, teaching Psychodynamics of Development and Family Relations in the psychology program of the “La Sapienza” University of Rome, director of the Academy of Family Psychotherapy and editor of the journal “Terapia Familiare”. He is the author of numerous essays; in 1999 he published, in the same series, “The Crisis of the Couple”.
Claudio Angelo is a child neuropsychiatrist and psychotherapist, training analyst and supervisor at the Academy of Family Psychotherapy in Rome; he works in the psychiatric department of the hospital of Bolzano (Italy). With Maurizio Andolfi, he published “Tempo e mito nella psicoterapia familiare” (Turin, 1987).
Paola D’Atena is associate professor of social psychology at the faculty of psychology of the “La Sapienza” University of Rome and scientific consultant to the Academy of Family Psychotherapy. Among her publications, one may note The Family as a Cognitive Resource (Milan, 1996), untranslated.
Emilio Ricci, lic. is a clinical and community psychologist, an Italian-Chilean family therapist trained at the Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”. He is a visiting professor at the Universidad Católica del Norte and head of the Family Therapy Unit (UTF) of the School of Psychology of the UCN, in Antofagasta, Chile.
This article is an English translation of “La terapia narrada por las familias. Un panorama de investigación intergeneracional”, published by Red Sistémica (first published in La terapia narrata dalle famiglie. Una prospettiva di ricerca intergenerazionale, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan, 2001 ; fragment traduit en espagnol dans Perspectivas Sistémicas, n° 91). Translated and republished with the journal’s permission.
Read the original articleHow to cite this article
Andolfi, M., Angelo, C., & D’Atena, P. (2022). Therapy as told by families. A panorama of intergenerational research (Complexe Systémique, Trans.). Complexe Systémique. https://app.complexe-systemique.com/en_GB/articles/therapy-as-told-by-families-a-panorama-of-intergenerational-research (Original work published in 2001 in La terapia narrata dalle famiglie. Una prospettiva di ricerca intergenerazionale, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan, 2001 ; fragment traduit en espagnol dans Perspectivas Sistémicas, n° 91; republished in 2022 by Red Sistémica, https://redsistemica.ar/2022/08/01/la-terapia-narrada-por-las-familias-un-panorama-de-investigacion-intergeneracional/)
To go further
- Therapy as told by families. Emotional cut-offThe second excerpt from the same chapter: emotional cutoff, temporal leaps and procedural memory.
- Maurizio Andolfi: a life devoted to family therapyThe path of the lead author and the place of the three generations in his work.
- What you need to know about the genogram, a systemic toolThe basic tool for reading a family across three generational levels.
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