Reintegrating Family Therapy Training in Psychiatric Residency Programs: Making the Case

Abstract

Given the marginalization of couples and family therapy in psychiatric residency programs over the past two decades, the authors propose a rationale for the reintegration of these important psychosocial treatments into the mainstream of general psychiatric residency education. After reviewing recent trends in the field that call for a more prominent role for couples and family therapy in residency training, the authors summarize the literature on family therapy training in psychiatry over the past four decades. Because biopsychosocial systemic thinking provides a powerful framework for looking at multiple levels of systems and their interrelationships, developing a strong family-systems perspective and acquiring basic "family skills" represent the minimum requirement for general psychiatric training. The authors argue for the addition of couples and family therapy to the five required psychotherapy competencies defined by the residency review committee in psychiatry. A rationale for a family-systems training model is proposed with the objective of encouraging residency programs to integrate the family-systems model more fully into their curricula.