For many years, the complex topic of how best to train family therapists, in terms of integrating their personal experience and their professional learning, has remained controversial; many family therapy trainers are concerned about trainees not having an acknowledged method of self-preparation consistent with a systemic model. Different institutions have different requirements and use different training methods consistent with their specific systemic theoretical model. In America, different states impose differing professional requirements whereas in Europe there is neither consensus nor a universal mandatory policy requiring trainees to have undergone some form of psychotherapy, be it in terms of the individual, the couple, or the family (Onnis, 1997). Nonetheless, in practice a large number of family therapy trainees have had some prior experience of therapy or personal work, usually in a one-to-one context. Personal psychoanalytically based individual therapy, whilst potentially helpful to the individual, in the systemic context provides a self-contradictory proposition.
One result of attempts to further our thinking and practice about this issue has been the personal and professional development (PPD) module, currently being used on MSc courses in family therapy at two different institutions. The module is a compulsory, though non-assessed, component of the training and continues throughout the two years' duration of the courses.
The module aims to provide a lively forum in which personal and professional interactions are discussed, where experiential exercises are used to link past and present, where group dynamics and course issues are recognized, and where linked skills training is practised.
In this group-based structure, the focus is on the connections between the personal and the professional experience of the trainee and how these can be used to develop professional expertise and self-reflexivity (the latter concept is discussed in Chapter 2). In the PPD module, a heuristic approach is adopted such that trainees have to take responsibility for what they learn and what they integrate in other aspects of the course. This module is predicated on the assumption, yet to be adequately researched, that the trainee's wider awareness of "self in context" leads to improved professional practice and is therefore to the benefit of both the client and the therapist. Characteristic of this form of groupwork are the feedback loops between personal and professional issues and between them and wider systems such as the extended family, economic, social, and political structures.
The opening chapters are concerned with the context and evolution of the PPD module meetings. Chapter 1 describes the background, the aims, and the rationale that have led to the establishment of the PPD module currently in use in two postgraduate family therapy trainings. Chapter 2 focuses on current professional concerns about the significance of trainees becoming more self-reflexive and the role of personal therapy in family therapy training. Chapter 3 then describes the structure of the PPD module in two institutions using the model.
Chapter 4 looks at the module content, with particular emphasis on the experiential exercises, each of which is described, together with additional comments and caveats, in step-by-step stages in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.
Chapter 8 presents responses to interviews with a number of family therapy trainees who had been participants in the PPD modules in two different institutions from 1993 to 1995. Based on their analysis of this survey, the two interviewers (Colette Richardson and Frankie Zimmerman) consider possible improvements in the design of the module.
Chapter 9 opens a discussion of the various themes raised throughout the book and considers implications for future training.
For the purposes of clarity, therapists and leaders are referred to as female and trainees as male. "Group leader" refers to the author unless otherwise stated.