Multiple Family Therapy: The Marlborough Model and Its Wider Applications

155 Pages·2004·4.483 MB·English

by  Eia Asen, Neil Dawson, Brenda McHugh

S Y S T E M IC T H I N K I NG
A ND P R A C T I CE S E R I ES
Series Editors:
DAVID CAMPBELL & Ros DRAPER
Multiple Family Therapy:
The Marlborough Model and
its Wider Applications
ElA ASEN,
NEIL DAWSON &
BRENDA MCHUGH
MULTIPLE FAMILY

THERAPY
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MULTIPLE FAMILY

THERAPY
The Marlborough Model
and Its Wider Applications
Eia Asen, Neil Dawson,
& Brenda McHugh
Foreword by Introduction by
Salvador Minuchin Alan Cooklin
Systemic Thinking and Practice Series
Series Editors
David Campbell & Ros Draper
KARNAC
LONDON NEW YORK
First published in 2001 by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd,
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
A subsidiary of Other Press LLC, New York
Copyright © 2001 Eia Asen, Neil Dawson, & Brenda McHugh.
The rights of Eia Asen, Neil Dawson, & Brenda McHugh to be identified as
the authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78
of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CLP. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 85575 277 1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Edited, designed, and produced by Communication Crafts
www. karnacbooks.com
Printed and bound by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastbourne
CONTENTS

EDITORS' FOREWORD vii

FOREWORD by Salvador Minuchin ix

ABOUT THE AUTHORS xiii

PREFACE XV

INTRODUCTION by Alan Cooklin xix

CHAPTER ONE

Developing a contextual approach 1

CHAPTER TWO

Multiple family therapy—history and concepts 11

CHAPTER THREE

Developing a day unit for families 19

CHAPTER FOUR

The Family School 49

v
Vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER FIVE

Applications of the Marlborough Model 67

CHAPTER SIX

Skills and techniques in multiple family therapy 83

Epilogue 107

REFERENCES 113

INDEX 118
EDITORS' FOREWORD

T
he Systemic Thinking and Practice Series is very pleased to
publish its first contribution from the Marlborough Family
Service in London. For readers who may not know, this is a
pioneering centre that has uniquely applied systemic approaches
to work in the community. This highly respected institution has
been in the forefront of developing services for child-protection
cases, school-based interventions, and family therapy for ethnic­
minority communities. But the one service that established its
reputation for family work, and has stood the test of time, has been
the Family Day Unit, which brings troubled families together to
learn from one another.
Readers may be aware that there is a growing interest in the
family therapy field to know more about what families can learn
from each other. This seems to be a logical extension of the idea
that the family has the expertise to solve many of its own prob­
lems. If, then, this is true, why not let families support each other
through sharing experiences and find new solutions by pooling
their repertoire of successful strategies?
vii
viii EDITORS' FOREWORD
This is exactly what the Marlborough Family Service has been
doing for years, but now three of their long-standing staff mem­
bers have taken it upon themselves to describe what they do and
to conceptualize why certain approaches seem to work in certain
settings, such as the recently established centre in Germany which
is based on the Marlborough model. One important feature of this
writing is that all of the conclusions are based on years of expe­
rience.
The book describes innovative work with a range of family
problems, such as marital violence, eating disorders, educational
problems, and child abuse. For example, family groups may spend
time together reviewing videotapes of their child-rearing activi­
ties, or they may convene self-help groups to share responsibility
for assisting other families.
We think that readers will find this a refreshing, innovative
approach to our most challenging cases and will be enthused by
the possibilities that arise when families work together.
David Campbell
Ros Draper
London, 2001
FOREWORD

T
his short book is written in simple language but describes
an extraordinary process: the efficient meandering of the
Marlborough Family Service staff, in which they have con­
tinually created innovations in the delivery of services while re­
maining fully committed to the well-being of their client families.
In 1976, Alan Cooklin started this process by joining Maxwell
Jones's experiments and ideas about the therapeutic community
with Bateson's concept of systemic thinking. They were odd bed­
fellows indeed to use as the base for developing an "institution for
change"—a day hospital to work with multi-problem families,
who generally attracted multiple providers that, in the end, were
ineffective in multiple ways.
When, at the end of the 1970s, I went to London on sabbatical
and was invited by Cooklin to consult with the staff, I found an
institution ahead of its time. I directed most of my efforts towards
helping the staff integrate the family therapy team, inspired by
systemic thinking, with the school and Family Day Unit, which
was guided more by pragmatic and educational ideas. The staff
also borrowed from my work an orientation towards challenge
ix