At-Home Webinar Series

Born during the initial fear and lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, AAMFT's At Home Series taught us that connections in our MFT community are possible even in the most isolating and uncertain of circumstances. We can find a professional home wherever we are through the values and vision we share. In 2024, the At Home series will continue with even more sessions featuring new guest speakers; systemic thinkers sharing their insights from past cases, developmental work in various specialties, and professional anecdotes and personal reflections. As our profession continues to rise to the challenges of today's realities, we hope you will join us from your homes and offices to gather around what makes systemic therapy fundamental to our ever-changing world.

May Webinar: Prof. Maurizio Andolfi


 

Listening to Teen Voices in Family Therapy

Thursday, May 23rd 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. EST

“Teenagers are more at risk in fragmented and toxic society where family disintegration, single parenthood and absent fathers are becoming the norm. Unresolved parental and intergenerational conflicts and marginalization along with the deleterious impact of social media are damaging adolescents’ health development, resulting in a variety of symptoms and disorders” (Assisi Manifesto, 2023)

In this webinar, Maurizio Andolfi will outline the essential need to listen to youth voice in therapy without prejudice and labeling. Their voice, sometimes arrogant or bizarre, angry or provocative, are often a despaired cry for love and care.

By showing a video of a life family session from the Academia Multimedia Collection, Andolfi will illustrate how to build an alliance with a withdrawn teenager with the use of relational questions in presence of his mother and his maternal grandparents. The connection between the” lock door” of the child with other lock doors in the past will be outlines as well as the child’s need to “open doors” to reach out to his father to overcome his sense of loneliness.

Learning Objectives

 

  • Participants will learn how to use a multigenerational approach in dealing with families in need.
  • Participants will learn how to build a special alliance with the problem-child
  • Participants will learn how to use relational questioning to enter into family issues
  • Participants will learn how to reframe withdrawn behavior in relational competence
  • Participants will learn how to work with divorcees families and  how to engage family of origin in session

About the Speaker:

Prof. Maurizio Andolfi is a Child Psychiatrist and internationally renowned Master Family Therapist. He  was a fellow in Social and Community Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, Visiting Professor at the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and studied at al Nathan Ackerman Family Institute con Kitty LaPerrière; the Ackerman Institute for the Family, the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic with Salvador Minuchin and Jay Haley and was associated with Carl Whitaker at the Madison University in Wisconsin.

He has been Full Professor at the Dpt. of clinical Psychology, University La Sapienza, Rome. He is the Director of the International Family Therapy Academy (Italy) and The Perth Circle for the advancement of family therapy (W.A). Editor  of  the Italian Journal Terapia Familiare and Andolfi has been Professor at the Dpt. of Clinical & Dynamic Psychology at La Sapienza-University of Rome. He is currently the director of the Accademia di Psicoterapia della Famiglia and president of the Silvano Andolfi Foundation in Rome, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the Italian journal, Terapia Familiare. He is a founding member of  EFTA and he was awarded for his special contribution to family therapy by AAMFT in 1999 and got a Lifetime Achievement Award from AFTA In 2016. Andolfi recently relocated to Australia where he got the title of Distinguish Talent from the Australian Government (2012) and got an Award for his contribution in family therapy from the Australian Association of family therapy in 2021. He is Honorary Member of the Asian Family Therapy Association and World social Psychiatry Association.

An Andolfi Family Therapy Centre has been opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He continues to teach all over  the world and published widely in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Chinese. Andolfi has been Professor at the Dpt. of Clinical & Dynamic Psychology at La Sapienza-University of Rome. He is currently the director of the Accademia di Psicoterapia della Famiglia.