Narrative family therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and adoption: Fostering interactions in clinical settings

Narrative family therapy is the study of individuals, systems and the research on origins, development and transmission of values, as well as their meaning, and influence on social dynamics. Using tales we could symbolically represent an entity, both individual and collective, and express a personal identification, a family tie, a community link or a socially recognized status or personal worth. Externalisation, in narrative family therapy, is a process to “get out” from the person any element or quality that is transformed in some with entity. In psychotherapy, externalising is the use of language to convert problems that affect person or family on to independent entity. This transformation allows people to fight against them or to view them from a new perspective. Externalisation technique thorough the metaphoric use of tales as external representation of family entity and individual’s worth inside the family system is applied in adoption cases. The objective here is to create a link between the child history and the family history in order to cope with difficulties that children and families find after adoption. We use tales inside the symbolic techniques that permits families work together with meanings, individualism and cohesion within their members, and after adoption. We present some clinical cases with families that have adopted a child. During the treatment we have combined EMDR and narrative family therapy techniques in clinical interventions. Using them, we carried out an analysis of the therapeutic issues and benefices of EMDR and narrative therapy in these family processes.

Conference

English

Marian Perez-Marin
Milagros Molero-Zafra

Perez-Marin, M., & Molero-Zafra, M. (2008, June). Narrative family therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and adoption: Fostering interactions in clinical settings. Presentation at the 9th EMDR Europe Association Conference, London, England