Helen Jones

• Systemic Therapy

What is Systemic Therapy?
Systemic Psychotherapy is an evidence-based model of therapy from families to orchestras,
co-workers to sports teams focusing on relationships between a group of people, rather than
solely on the individual’s thoughts and feelings (British Association for Counselling and
Psychotherapy)
Systemic Family and Couple Therapy is as effective, and in many cases more effective than
alternative interventions for the following reasons (Stratton 2016)

• Systemic Therapy is effective for families of children and adults without pathologising
  any one particular person as ‘the problem’. Instead, Systemic Therapists work with the
  family or relationship system as a whole, by supporting them each to make changes to
  how they interact and engage with each other
• It is effective across the life cycle spanning development stages from under fives to old
  age
• Working therapeutically with individuals together with their families and/or significant
  others enables the use of individuals’ relationship as a resource and reduces stress and
  difficulty for all family members
• Systemic Family Therapy has found to be particularly effective with severe and complex
  issues which have usually required intensive treatment. It is therefore a cost-effective
  treatment which can produce sustainable change.

Stratton, P. (2016) The Evidence Base of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice. Association for
Family Therapy, UK.)