WITH FAMILIES AFTER TRAUMATIC EVENTS Dr. Trudy Mooren, dr

MULTIFAMILY THERAPY (MFT) WITH FAMILIES AFTER TRAUMATIC EVENTS
Dr. Trudy Mooren, dr. Julia Bala
Psychotrauma results in consequences that go beyond the individual. Long lasting cumulative (traumatic)
stress and chronic PTSD of (a) family member(s) can seriously undermine the family routines, relations,
patterns of communication and limit the parental functioning, leading to psychosocial difficulties of the
children. The posttraumatic family reorganization can facilitate or hinder the functional adaptation. Intimate
family members are part of the adaptation process that violence-stricken people go through. Similarly, social
support is one of the crucial factors in ameliorating the harm caused by violence.
Multifamily therapy (MFT) is a system-oriented intervention that aims to facilitate adequate functioning in
couples, parent-child dyads or families. It is both a setting as well as a method. MFT is characterized by
bringing together 6-8 families (or systems) in open or closed group-settings. The families share common
difficulties e.g., coping with the relational consequences of PTSD by ex-military or having a child with
internalizing or externalizing problems. One of the core principles is that families benefit from other families
best; the task of the MFT-facilitator is to enhance interaction and guide experimentation with behavioralternatives whenever possible. Activities employed are playful as children are involved. There are numerous
possibilities to work with sub-systems, e.g., families, father-son or mother-daughter dyads etc.
MFT is implemented in Foundation Centrum ’45, the Netherlands for treatment of family consequences of
trauma. Since its introduction within the work of the presenters, it has been employed in their clinical practice
with refugees and asylumseekers, war-veterans, in prevention program in collective centers for asylumseekers and in conflict area.
The MFT as applied in Centrum '45 is mentalization based focused on improving the sensitive parentingrelationships between parents and children and strength based: empowering families to cope with traumatic
experiences and their consequences. In this pre-conference workshop MFT for traumatized families will be
introduced, illustrated and explained with regard to its core principles. Examples from practice will be shared
during this workshop. Participants will learn the basic elements of MFT, and have a clear idea of how to
implement the intervention.