A Dialogic Approach to Milan Systemic Therapy

Presenters: Paolo Bertrando and Alessandra Milesi

Friday 30th and Saturday 31st May 2008

£139.00

The Milan systemic approach to psychotherapy is characterised by a few basic points, that should be considered also by therapists who do not subscribe such a vision. These include the centrality of relationships and the importance given to people’s epistemologies and premises, the analysis of the different contexts we inhabit and the emphasis on language.

Today, a version of the Milan approach suitable for postmodern times should be characterised by a new attention on therapeutic dialogue and on the therapeutic relationship, maintaining at the same time its hypothetical vision of therapy (and of the world at large), and its emphasis on context analysis. The approach has generated a series of well defined techniques which make little sense if they are not used within an overall systemic vision, which gives them the maximum of clinical efficacy. The two-day workshop aims to present the Milan Approach to systemic therapy in the frame of a dialogic conception of psychotherapy. Participants are invited to explore the therapeutic relationship, developing dialogue through the questioning process.

Clinical cases will used in the workshop to illustrate the model, describe intervention methods, and discuss possible difficulties of the treatment format. Participants will be encouraged to bring their own clinical cases for supervision, that may involve role-playing of individual systemic therapy sessions.

Paolo Bertrando graduated in medicine and specialised in psychiatry in Milan. He was trained in systemic family therapy by Luigi Boscolo and Gianfranco Cecchin in the 1980s, and used initially the Milan Approach for working with a families with a member diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In the early 1990s, he collaborated with Luigi Boscolo for two books, The Times of Times (1993), about the use of time in systemic practice, and Systemic Therapy with Individuals (1996), which promoted the use of the systemic approach, designed for working with families, in individual psychotherapy. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers, most about systemic theory and therapy. The title of his forthcoming book is The Dialogical Therapist. Dialogue in Systemic Practice. His present interests concern the dynamics of systemic therapy (both from a methodological and experimental point of view), the broader implications of systemic theory, and the use of systemic individual therapy with specific populations.

At KCC Foundation, London

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at the KCC Foundation, London

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