Relevance of family therapy in the psychiatric health care system

Abstract

For 25 years, Norwegian psychiatric residents have been taught and supervised in individual psychodynamic psychotherapy. To some extent this has excluded the patients' most important interpersonal context from therapeutic interventions, namely the patient's family. Family therapy itself has in the same period developed and changed and is no longer considered an alternative. It has become far more modest in its aspirations and is today considered supplementary in a bio-psycho-social way of thinking. The well-documented effect of the psychoeducative method has shown that family therapy can be implemented in a traditional psychiatric setting. Today, the changed structure and patient population in the psychiatric health care system gives more opportunity for family therapeutic approaches. Psychiatric residents should learn to observe families and be trained in family-therapeutic interventions.Family Therapy, Resident Training.