DATE: October, 1992
EDITION: Volume VI, Number 1
CONTENTS
I am sad to report that Anne Coppard died on December 18, 1991, from a recurrence of cancer. A leader of the network therapy team at Community Occupational Therapy Associates (COTA) in Toronto for several years, she was a regular participant at American Orthopsychiatric Association conference panels on network therapy. I will miss her cheerful, thoughtful, and resolutely optimistic presence in the network therapy movement. Although reluctant to have me write about her illness in the NETLETTER, she drew readily on the emotional support of her network of colleagues in Toronto, who were always available to her over the course of her struggle with the disease. She led COTA through a time of growth: adding new disciplines and client populations to the project, and conducting professional education throughout Canada. She also built bridges back to her native England, where occupational therapists and others are beginning to explore the network approach. Anne was a brave and gracious woman who will be missed. Claudia Blumberger, her successor at COTA, continues to develop linkages with the new British network therapists.
The Emergency Network Centre in Botkyrka, Sweden has been through dramatic times, as the Swedish government and political culture join the international trend toward more conservative, market-oriented ideology. With the original national government seed money about to run out, the local Commune (County) government demanded that the Centre produce a "profit" from fees for services. This challenged the Centre's fundamental assumption that their services be available to anyone who walked in. By happy coincidence, this crisis occurred at the same time that a Stockholm newspaper was writing a feature on the Network Centre. The Centre staff combined media exposure with mobilization of a network of political and service professional supporters, including a meeting of 60 to 70 people at the Centre which took on the qualities of a network assembly. By mid- December, the Botkyrka Commune decided to include the Centre in its budget. The Centre does have to generate revenue for 30% of its own budget. They will rely on fees from professional training and from contracts with two local service districts. They will still be able to serve walk-ins without demanding payment. Gunnar Forsberg tells me that the Centre staff have seven independent papers and one research report at the printers, and promises to send summaries for the NETLETTER. They continue to reach out with professional training; NETLETTER recently received subscriptions from Maikki Ikonen, Kaisu Naapila and Maire Hinkannen, who learned network therapy from their Swedish colleagues and work with several others in a network therapy team in Northeastern Helsinki, Finland. This year, the Emergency Network Centre's leader, Johan Klefbeck, plans to move on.
Don Lugtig and Don Fuchs from Winnipeg report that the Neighborhood Parent
Support Project has concluded. They have sent me the May, 1992, Final Report,
Building the strengths of local neighborhood social network ties for the
prevention of child maltreatment. I will review it in the next
NETLETTER.
Live Fyrand from Norway is working on translating some of her research
findings into English; I look forward to reviewing them for NETLETTER. She
is currently occupied with studying the impact of network therapy on
arthritic patients.
Jodie Kliman and I recently completed a chapter on network therapy
for a book edited by Mony Elkaim in Belgium, Les therapies familiales:
Principales approches. It should be published in French in 1994, by Les
Editions du Seuil in Paris. He hopes that the book will also be published
in several other languages, including English. Thanks to the NETLETTER
readers who responded to our inquiry about their recent activities. Jodie
and I learned about practice of which we had hitherto been unaware,
including by Mony and colleagues at La Gerbe in Brussels, Blanchet,
Desmarais, Lavigeur, and Roy at Douglas Hospital in Montreal, Gacic in
what was then Yugoslavia, and Baars, Uffing, Dekkers, Philipsen and de
Vries in the Netherlands. I will be sharing these discoveries in this and
future NETLETTERs.
Ross Speck sent along a clipping from the November, 1991, issue of
Clinical Psychiatry News, 19(11), quoting Dr. Marc Galanter's remarks at
a symposium on dual diagnosis. Galanter recommended network therapy to
support a patient's abstinence from substance abuse from the outset of
therapy. Galanter made a good case for the network approach, and showed
sophistication about structural issues, such as balance in the composition
of the assembled group. I was startled, however, at the following
observations: "The psychiatrist needs no particular expertise in group work
to organize the network; it does not involve the sophisticated systems
approach of family therapy or a subtle understanding of group forces..."
Ross' comment on the article: "Thought this might amuse you. Plus ca
change, plus la meme chose..."
On May 17, 1992, a group of network therapists gathered in New York for another presentation at the Annual Conference of the American Orthopsychiatric Association (Ortho). I moderated a panel including Claudia Blumberger of Toronto, Gunnar Forsberg of Stockholm, Don Fuchs of Winnipeg, Larry Ruhf of Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Jan Tesli Stokke of Oslo. After the panelists presented their work, Larry Ruhf led panelists and attendees in a "circle similarity exercise," a retribalization method which helped to activate a lively discussion among the panelists and the 11 attendees.
Claudia Blumberger presented COTA's (Community Occupational Therapists and Associates - the name changed to reflect the participation of other professional disciplines, particularly social work) community-based practice with the chronically mentally ill. Noting that COTA's clients' networks show limited flexibility and poor communication, Claudia described strategies to facilitate connections among members, improving the flow of emotional and instrumental resources. COTA's goals are to mobilize, strengthen, and empower the network, improve communication, and develop problem-solving strategies, all of which increase the network's supportive capacity. Claudia noted that a "two-tiered" approach, with the addition of a community rehabilitation worker to assist the client with individual service needs, had significantly improved the network therapist's ability to address network issues, in addition to increasing the client's network by one more member. COTA's work is consistent with Paul Schoenfeld's (1988) model of educational, pragmatic, systematic, and preventive intervention, with particular emphasis on the pragmatic. Claudia characterized four intervention strategies, convening, connecting, coaching, and constructing. Her paper included a number of compelling and illuminating case illustrations of COTA's work.
Gunnar Forsberg presented the Emergency Network Centre, whose progress NETLETTER has been following; the English name he used in this presentation was the Crisis Unit for Children's Networks. The Unit defines its clients as anyone in a child's network who is worried about that child, or anyone who is worried about a network member. The Unit has elaborated on the Mount Tom model of balance in the assembled network, by trying to include in their assemblies people directly suffering from the crisis, people not involved directly but affected emotionally by the crisis, and support persons invited from "outside the crisis-system." He noted the importance of providing supporters for the professionals involved in the crisis. It is most helpful that the supporters be decision-makers (e.g., clinic director), so that plans made at a network assembly can be carried out by the relevant service agencies. The Unit has developed a team method inspired by Tom Anderson's family therapy work, and which reminds me of Mount Tom's "emotional conductor." In this approach, one or more team members act as a "reflecting team," who collaborate with the "active team" which conducts the meeting. The reflecting team share their observations of and emotional reactions to the meeting process. This method helps the meeting to work through the depression phase, and can compensate for imbalance in the composition of a network assembly. Researcher Maria Elf studied process and outcome of the Unit's network interventions. Interviews of professionals who participated in network assemblies found that 84% gave positive reactions, and 16% gave negative reactions. Seventy three per cent of personal network members gave positive reactions; 27% gave negative reactions. Elf's own evaluation of treatment outcomes found 55% improved, 26% neither better nor worse, and 9% worse [I don't know what happened to the remaining 10%]. Cases which turned out worse were characterized as occuring in a context of social control, with high polarization within the intimate network, as well as in their relationships with the social service system, and inadequate compositional balance in the mobilized network. Problems occurrred when the referral process identified the Crisis Unit as an agent of social control over the network members. Examining network assembly process, Elf reported that an assembly's turning point usually came when the team emphasized "how serious and hopeless the troubles are," which Gunnar takes to vindicate the Unit's reliance on the Speck and Attneave spiral model, with its emphasis on the depression phase.
Don Fuchs reported on the recently concluded Neighborhood Parent Support Project. I will review their Final Report in the next NETLETTER. Don reported that, despite the generally strong evidence of the Project's effectiveness in preventing child maltreatment, the local child welfare agencies are currently retrenching to an even more conservative, traditional child protective case management approach. Prophets are without honor in their own land; the Parent Support Project's findings are being warmly received at other levels of Provincial government, and in other parts of Canada.
Jan Tesli Stokke, a special education teacher, reported on the network approach used at the Grepperod Correctional Institute for Youth, a school and residential institution in Oslo (Norway) County for children with social and emotional problems. The network approach at Grepperod grew from the seeds planted by Live Fyrand's work with medical and human service institutions in Norway. Grepperod applies the network approach primarily with foster settings following the residential stay, and with a "Care- Network" made up of "Care-Units." Grepperod reframes foster care selection. They seek the appropriate foster network, rather than the appropriate foster family. Household composition is less important than the characteristics of the social network in which the child will be placed. The foster household's network is identified and assessed for its strengths and limitations in providing appropriate foster care. The institution secures agreement from members of the foster network to share the tasks of caretaking and socialization. In some cases, the child's needs and limitations require a higher level of professional and institutional involvement after the child leaves the residential setting. The Care Network provides a "halfway-network," analogous to the halfway house. Children live in households staffed by Grepperod employees and attend the Grepperod institutional school, supported by designated Care Network staff. The child's network is deliberately constructed to include the original personal network, the Grepperod school and institutional network, and the Care Network. Through the Care Network, children make use of each others' networks to meet their developmental, social, and educational needs. As children move on and out of the institutional setting, they are encouraged to continue to include their Grepperod ties in their developing personal networks.
Larry Ruhf described and demonstrated the importance of shared emotional experience in a network assembly. Larry noted Mount Tom's attention to balance, which requires involvement by both an inner network of closely involved members and an outer network of less engaged members. He stated that shared emotional experience knits inner and outer sets together, to "understand the emotional and practical difficulties of the client/family and help create an empathic response so that network members feel compelled to support family members, challenge family assumptions and offer ideas and resources to ameliorate the crisis situation." [My observation is that generating shared emotional experience includes aspects of team intervention from the retribalization, polarization (when the network polarizes against the team!) and depression phases of the six-stage Speck-Attneave model.] Larry illustrated the effect by enlisting the audience and panel into a "circle similarity exercise." He asked people to step briefly into the middle of a circle if they participated in certain experiences. Larry started gently, asking how far people had traveled to get to the meeting, working into more meaningful and emotionally evocative issues such as experiences of death, divorce, etc. The group chose one of these topics, divorce, and those who shared the experience sat in the middle discussing it, then engaged in discussion with people in the outer circle.
Although we had relatively sparse attendance, people who came seemed quite knowledgeable, and either already had some experience or clearly had come to help prepare themselves to do network intervention. The questioning was specific and challenging. I have invited the same group to present at Ortho next year in San Francisco,where presentations will be organized around case descriptions which illuminate the particular style and circumstances of each network intervention project. I hope that the year after, some of the network interventionists whom Jodie and I discovered through writing our chapter for Mony Elkaim can be persuaded to come to Ortho to present their work.
Reference: Schoenfeld, P., 1988. Network therapy: Natural social supports for young adults with mental disorders. The Lines, 5(1))
[From Herman Baars, Department of Social Psychiatry, University of Limburg, P.O. Box 616, 6200 Maastricht, THE NETHERLANDS, March 30, 1992]: The last issue of the NETLETTER included an announcement of the Sunbelt conference. Together with my colleague H. Uffing, I visited this congress on Social Network Analysis in San Diego, last February. Notwithstanding the fact that it was very interesting to meet people working on the same subject, new topics on the congress were scarce. Of course there were excellent contributions from Muriel Hammer, Barry Wellman as well as from Katherine Faust and Stanley Wasserman, but I missed the more practically oriented studies, especially in the field of psychiatry and community mental health care. In fact, I missed the colleagues who receive the Netletter. Accordingly, it would be a good thing to have conference with those working on the practical aspects of social network. Is it possible to arrange such a meeting and what would be the opinion of those in the Newsletter circuit?
We would be glad to participate and help in such an initiative for a more practically-oriented congress in Maastricht, for example in the autumn of 1993....Hoping to hear you share my opinion.
[Ed.: Indeed I do, and as always am happy to express my views, which can be found in the VIEWS section of this issue.]
[From Maikki Ikonen, Haahkakuja 1A1, 0200 Helsinki, FINLAND, January 1, 1992]: We (Maire Hinkkanen and I) are doing post graduate studies on pre-adolescent delinquents' networks in social science and psychology at Jyvaskyla University and would be glad to contact you on behalf of Netletter when we have got a little further and have some results. We have also started the third year of intensive network training (course, education) conducted by the Botkyrka Group. Eva, Gunnar, and Johan just left after being here for two days. ...Thank you for your important work getting the networkers together.
[From Ben Gottlieb, Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, CANADA, November 5, 1991]: Just a brief note to commend you for your efforts to keep us all abreast of recent developments concerning the study and change of social networks. I always read your Netletters with great curiosity and find the personal reflections you offer particularly interesting. In fact, even though I am presently concentrating my research attention elsewhere, I still find myself intrigued by the news you share about developments in the network field. I also found that you did a great job in faithfully recording the messages of the speakers you heard at APA in Boston....Keep up the great (net)work!
[From Paul Schoenfeld Hartford Community Mental Health Center, 2550 Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut 06120, U.S.A., November 7, 1991]: In Hartford, Connecticut, at the Hartford Community Mental Health Center, I have recently written proposals and received funding for three projects in which network therapy is the cornerstone. One grant is to provide case management to inner city children which uses a network approach as its primary intervention. The goal of this program is to prevent out of home placement for at-risk children. Another program is a therapeutic foster care project which will attempt to build social networks for foster kids. The third program provides network support to families with mentally ill relatives in the African-American community in Hartford. All told, I have managed to obtain about $300,000 worth of new programs that use network therapy.
I am in the process of developing training programs for the Department of Children and Youth Services in Connecticut to further the use of network therapy. Contact me, Paul Schoenfeld, Ph.D. [address above] 203-548-0101 if you are interested in more information.
[From David Duboff 511 Benjamin Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104, U.S.A., December 26, 1991]: Over the past few years, I've been doing networking at several levels: 1) Clinical work with several mentally ill people who I also work with on an organizational/political level. In addition to working on general life issues, I focus on their personal problems that relate to their organizational involvement. This relates to my macro-level work weaving peace and social justice groups and human service programs together. 2) Work with a self-help group of mental health consumers. This includes interpersonal work with members and weaving this group together with the local chapter of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill and other supportive groups. 3) Through networking, building a group of consumers who want to work on mental health issues on a political level, and be mental health consumer advocates. 4) In a variety of ways, networking among human service agencies. One way involved working with a committee of agency people developing a comprehensive plan for meeting the permanent housing needs of the homeless mentally ill. Now, I am networking among agencies to pull together a group that can apply for federal funds for rental assistance and services for the homeless mentally ill. I am trying to get consumers to become involved in providing input into decision-making about how we want to use the money. This is a way of linking consumer groups with professionals...I'm afraid I really don't have time to describe intervention methods, etc. I'd just like to provide a sense of how working at different levels can be integrated.
[From Mary Youngquist 1204 Harmon Place, Suite 4, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403, U.S.A., November 1, 1991]: ...I just received my Ph.D. from Saybrook Institute in San Francisco...One of my candidacy essays dealt with network therapy and is entitled: Network Assessment as Intervention: Theory and Praxis. It was nominated for the Thuss Award at Saybrook and I was one of the three finalists in the competition. [Ed.: Congratulations, Mary!] The Thuss award recognizes outstanding scholarship for candidacy essays...The essay described the historical development of network therapy and theoretical constructs which support its therapeutic intent. The praxis of network therapy as it has been drawn from various theories and research efforts was analyzed and placed within a framework of humanism. Finally, a new form of network strategy was presented based upon the preceding analysis and on the research which has contributed to the curative functions of the social support networks and clinical experience with social network intervention. Copies of this essay are available through me, Mary Youngquist, Ph.D. [address above].
I heard from Mark Sirkin (39 Davenport Avenue, #5C, New Rochelle, NY 10805, USA) and Uri Rueveni (University of Houston at Clear Lake City, 2700 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77058, USA) about an intervention involving a full-scale assembly conducted by a team including Ross and Joan Speck, Uri and Mira Rueveni, and Richard Bailey, for a problem which involved aspects of both cult and folie a deux phenomena. Mark and Uri have drafted an article on the intervention, which they are submitting for publication, as an example of network therapy for the treatment of a relational disorder, particularly a relational disorder in which interdependency is exagerrated as autonomy is undermined.
Mark was the therapist for "P,"in his mid-twenties, who had known "L" since high school. L had been diagnosed and hospitalized previously for paranoid schizophrenia. P had ongoing relationships with his family, while L had conflicted and distant relationships with his family. On returning from college, P had renewed his relationship with L, who had developed an elaborate Apocalyptic view of the world, in which he was the Messiah. P's family, who were alarmed by P's increasing involvement with L, his decreasing contacts with them, and his expressed intention to spend trust fund money on L's cause, intervened with psychiatric consultation which blocked P's efforts to spend trust money, and set off P's counter-moves to regain control of the money. At this point, Mark proposed network therapy.
Although engaged by P's family, the intervention team tried to balance the assembly by including supports for both of the friends. Unfortunately, they could not surmount the estrangement between L and his family network, and could assemble only P's family network. Until the assembly itself, they did not know whether or not either friend would attend. The team therefore set modest goals: mobilizing P's family network to address the attachment between the friends and find ways to help his parents in their distress, and (more tentatively), facilitating separation between the friends. Before the assembly, the family relinquished control of the trust fund money; relaxation of this power struggle may have facilitated P's and L's appearance at the assembly. The friends came accompanied by their attorney, asking all participants to sign a release form pledging not to consider or recommend hospitalization for either of them during or as a result of the intervention. The team recommended cooperation with this procedure, further reducing the power struggle.
The two friends made clear that their intention was to proselytize; given the composition of the assembly and the friends' agenda, most of the discussion focussed on P's troubles in his family relationships (particularly between himself and his father), and the impact on his family and his friends of his overinvolvement with L. Four support groups were set up, one for each parent, and one each for P's brother and sister. P was encouraged to join his father's group. Communications to the whole assembly from the support groups addressed helping the parents cope with the possibility that P would not change his mind, and articulating the courses of action should he do so, e.g., spending more time with his father, returning to school, separating from L, studying abroad, and visiting with his family more often. P appeared to be unmoved by the discussion, and he and L departed defiantly.
Perhaps because of the imbalance in the assembly, which set P up for a loyalty conflict between his family and L, who attended with no support, there was little initial evidence that the assembly had any impact. L spent most of the money available to him from the trust fund on promoting L's beliefs. Five months after the assembly, he began to have more contact with his family, acknowledging that the assembly had affected him, but that it was very difficult to admit it. He embarked on an apparently healthy developmental course, finding a girlfriend, joining a band, and making plans to leave L's apartment and apply to graduate school. It appears that the assembly had helped to show P that his family members could communicate with each other about difficulties they might have among themselves, and that they could welcome his re-engagement. A crisis around an event which demonstrated P's remaining ties with L led to a nine-month follow-up meeting with the team. By then, P was living with and paying rent to his brother, in a steady relationship with a girlfriend, working two jobs, and had definite plans for graduate school. He continued to separate himself from L. Unwilling to conform his beliefs entirely to his family's view of past events, he nonetheless was able to acknowledge that L might be mentally ill.
-Svedhem, Lennart (1991). Social networks and behavior problems in school among children aged 11 to 13 years. Stockholm: Carlsson Bokforlag. [Thanks to Gunnar Forsberg for sending the English summary and abstract from this book, written in Swedish by Lennart Svedhem, M.D., Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Karolinska Institute, St Goran's Children's Hospital, S-11281 Stockholm, Sweden.]
The book describes a theoretical model and empirical studies examining the relationship between children's behavior problems in school and social network structure. Svedhem developed and tested the hypothesis that children with school behavior problems are more likely to come from fragmented social networks, i.e., networks with few linkages or spans between different sectors ("groups"). In the course of normal development, a child participates in a variety of different groups, e.g., family, neighborhood, school, etc. Each group or network sector may have different values, norms, and meanings. In healthy development, these differences among groups can enhance the child's cognitive and emotional growth. When there is potential or actual conflict between groups, or when the child gets into difficulty acting inappropriately in one group by following rules of conduct appropriate to another, contact, communication, and cooperation among the members of the child's different groups can often resolve these difficulties. The capacity of people from different groups to respect and cooperate with each other enhances the child's feelings of security, stability, and social control. When there are few spans between network sectors, behavior problems can generate misunderstandings between groups, leading to further mutual isolation. This isolation enhances projections and "myth building" between groups, giving the child little support for problem-solving concerning his/her behavioral dilemma, and generating loyalty conflicts which exacerbate distress and confusion. The pattern of circular causality between the child's unruly behavior and network fragmentation makes it more likely that the troubled child's network will shrink over time.
Svedhem's main study in this volume tested the hypothesis that children with behavior problems in school have fragmented social networks. He examined 190 boys and girls, aged 11 to 13, from a metropolitan suburb. Rutter's teacher's questionnaire, after its validity was established for Swedish conditions, was used to identify children with behavioral problems in school. Network fragmentation was measured using the subjects' own constructions of network maps. The mapping measure was validated using convergence with structured interviews of the subjects, retesting for assessment of stability, interviews with parents, teacher and parent questionnaires, sociograms, and schoolmate network maps. Thirty-two of the 190 children were identified as having behavioral problems in school. The two groups were compared in a multivariate analysis which included a variety of social background characteristics. The two groups did not differ in network size, but the problem children had smaller school sectors, and significantly more fragmented social networks. The English language summary introduces some ambiguity, on this last point, as follows: "All measures of spans were lower for the problem children (however, density between the adults was just above the 5% significance level)....In other words, the persons know one another to a lesser extent in the problem children's network, which can be described as more fragmented."(p. 181). This language is unclear as to whether the problem children had less dense (i.e., fewer ties among all network members) or more fragmented (i.e., fewer ties spanning different network sectors) networks. As I neither had nor could read the Swedish, I don't know whether this is a criticism of the study or of the English summary. I would appreciate hearing from Lennart or another Swedish colleague on this point.
The Swedish book included a chapter with a case study, illuminating methods of network intervention designed to increase linkages among a child's network sectors, without necessarily assembling the whole network.
The book also reports a pilot study of five severely troubled psychiatric emergency patients, age 11 to 13. These patients produced network maps with fewer members and fewer sectors than the problem children in the main study. The patients reported people as having disappeared from their networks. Svedhem suggested a model in which a lack of spans accelerates network shrinkage, locked in a cycle of circular causality with increasing psychopathology.
-Branko Gacic's work as Director of the Center for Family Therapy of Alcoholism at the Institute for Mental Health in Belgrade, Yugoslavia [This is the first in a series of reviews of the discoveries which Jodie and I made in preparing our chapter on network therapy for Mony Elkaim.]
Branko started his family and social network therapy program in 1973, drawing on the work of Speck, Attneave, and Rueveni. The Center has treated thousands of families with its ecosystemic, family and social network approach, and has established workplace and community prevention programs. Branko wrote NETLETTER with a set of reprints and references in response to the appeal for contributions to the chapter published in the last issue; he stated that "for almost twenty years I have not treated any Index Patient without his/her network." His ecosystemic approach to alcoholism integrates ecology, general systems, communication, cybernetics, and developmental theories, and addresses biomedical, psychological, and sociocultural levels ("from intracellular to interpersonal"). His research supports expansion of treatment goals beyond abstinence and health to include "family and other, wider work/social system functioning." A course of treatment extends over a year, and requires involvement of family and significant others; modalities include individual (medical as well as psychotherapeutic intervention), family, and multiple family therapy, network assemblies (usually convening 5-10 members from both primary and secondary networks), support groups, and interagency collaboration. After a few pretreatment assessment sessions comes a three- to six-week intensive phase for "detoxification of the whole system," when the widest variety of modalities is applied, many of them in the Center's day hospital. The remainder of the year is the "stabilization phase," with weekly multiple family group sessions. After termination, families can participate in a "family club," a constructed network which helps maintain changes and provide social support.
I received Branko's correspondence at the beginning of 1992; civil war had already been in progress for some time, but matters had not deteriorated to the level we are seeing in October. Although Belgrade itself is not under fire, clearly it is suffering the strains of war, including ethnic hatreds intensifying among peoples whose lives and personal networks have been intimately interconnected for generations. I would be very interested in hearing Branko's observations on the network phenomena he observes in a society at war with itself. I am also very curious about the impact of state socialism - and of its decline - on his work. Most of his publications were written when Yugoslavia was a socialist state, with highly integrated government, health services, and economy. One can read signs of the implications of these arrangements in Branko's desriptions of his work; e.g., the involvement of the employer and the industrial psychologist in the course of treatment; treatment and prevention programs in the workplace; and the fact that the intensive phase of the treatment has patients on paid sick leave. As state socialism unravels, what happens to the integration of treatment and workplace?
The following are some references on Branko's work:
Gacic, B. (1978). Porodicna terapija alkoholizma (Family therapy of alcoholism). Belgrade: Rad.
Gacic, B. (1980). Tretman porodicne i socijalne mreze alkoholicara. Sistemska terapija alkoholizma (The treatment of the family and social network in alcoholism). Alkoholizam, 20,3-4.
Gacic, B. (1986). An ecosystematic approach to alcoholism: Theory and practice. Contemporary Family Therapy, 8, 264-278.
Gacic, B. (1988) Alkoholizam - bolest pojecdinca, porodice i drustva -2nd Edition (Alcoholism - individual, family, and social disease). Belgrade: Filip Visnjic.
I was delighted to receive Herman Baar's proposal to help in initiating a gathering of network therapists in Maastricht (See CORRESPONDENCE). I hope that he will hear from other NETLETTER readers, and that this will become a serious project. Occasional gatherings at Ortho, although useful, do not fill the need to gather as many network therapists as possible from as many places around the globe as possible to share their work and learn from each other. Such a gathering could produce several days of presentations and discussions, some new syntheses, and some consensus about what practical measures appear to have the most universal application. It would be fascinating to participate in discussions among practitioners about the particular characteristics of the social networks of different clinical populations, in different national cultures, of different classes, ethnic groups, etc. I would love to hear from Swedish and Belgian practitioners about the network transformations and dilemmas faced by immigrants to Stockholm or Brussels as they go through the acculturation process. We could get perspectives from a number of national settings about the influence of government health and human service policy on the dissemination of network approaches in different countries. It would be useful to have a roundtable discussion among practitioners who have used mapping techniques in clinical practice and/or in research, to work toward some consensus about what works best (or, given the variety of national and cultural settings, to define common parameters so that we can understand the differences in the mapping methods we use). An international network intervention conference might provide the setting to form a working relationship between network therapists, driven by pragmatic concerns and informed primarily by system theory, and network analysts, whose work provided the metaphor for our own, and whose research and theory-building could enrich our understanding and inspire technical innovation.
I see my roles in development of such a conference as dreamer and disseminator of ideas. With no current institutional affiliation, I am certainly in no position to take on the daunting organizational tasks. I urge that NETLETTER readers who are interested in making such a conference happen please make contact with Herman Baars, and send copies of any documents you may draft proposing ideas for conference activities to NETLETTER.
In the course of preparing our chapter on network therapy, Jodie Kliman and I received from our editor, Mony Elkaim, a copy of the French language Resonances, Revue des Therapies Familiales et des Pratiques de Reseaux (Review of the Family Therapies and the Network Practices), Volume 1, 1991, edited by Mony Elkaim and by Eric Trappeniers. Attractively presented on glossy paper with photographs and illustrations, it includes articles, interviews with leaders in the field, announcements, and information exchange with readers. The issue we received included an interview with the late Sylvana Montagno ("Where are the networks of yesteryear?"), and an article by Benedicte de Bellefroid on mapping the networks of institutionalized youth.
Thanks again to Jodie Kliman for her thoughtful and careful editing.
...Thanks to Gilbert Kliman's generosity, our household now works with a Gateway 2000 IBM compatible computer, with Microsoft Publisher Software. With time and good luck, I should be able to operate the Publisher by the next issue, making NETLETTER more readable and accessible.
Forthcoming are reviews of the Winnipeg Neighborhood Parent Support Project Final Report, of some articles by Barry Wellman at the University of Toronto, a network analyst who has paid particular attention to issues of community and of social support, of Mary Youngquist's (of Minneapolis) essay on network assessment as intervention, and of the work by Herman Baars, Hans Uffing, and their colleagues in the Netherlands.
There's plenty of room in the next issue for your correspondence and contributions!
PLEASE WRITE! We can now take high density disks, either 3 1/2" or 5
1/4"; our Word Perfect software can reformat most documents written with software
generally in use in the U.S.
USEFUL LINKS
This Site
was Originally Created and Maintained by Ransom D. Trimble 