Terapia Familiare (Journal)

Terapia Familiare (TF) is a peer-reviewed, quarterly publication written in Italian language with an English abstract of each article; TF is the oldest and most prestigious Italian journal of family and couple’s studies and research as well as about systemic and relational therapy.

Founded by Maurizio Andolfi in 1977, the journal was able to catalyze the emerging movement of family therapy in Italy and in Europe. Just 1 year after the birth, in 1978, the journal sponsored in Florence a historic international conference in family therapy, with the participation of many pioneers in the field, such as Murray Bowen, Salvador Minuchin, James Framo, Jay Haley, Israel Zwerling, Peggy Papp, Albert Scheflen, and Margareth Singer. In addition to the most prominent North American innovators, the new emerging European figures were present there: Mara Selvini Palazzoli, Gianfranco Cecchin and Luigi Boscolo of the Milan School, Helm Stierlin and his Heidelberg team, Robin Skinner from the UK, Maurizio Andolfi of the Roman School, and Mony Elkaim from Brussels. The main presentations of this conference were published in two special issues of the journal and collected in a book (Andolfi and Zwerling 1980).

Terapia Familiare evolved with the field, starting with articles based on system theories and family interventions with psychiatric patients and moving on toward an integration between systemic ideas and psychodynamic understanding of the individual. Bringing back family history and people’s emotions and feelings in the session was a very important shift from the system purists’ vision and the concept of neutrality. Issues about therapeutic responsibility and social injustice were widely described as well as the need to find a cultural lens to look at migration process and diverse family forms.

Terapia Familiare is housed at the site of the editor Maurizio Andolfi at the Accademia di Psicoterapia della Famiglia, Via Bosio, 34 Rome, Italy, which has the property of the journal.

The founding and present editor is Maurizo Andolfi.

The journal has counted on a number of prominent figures in the field of family therapy, who have been the main resource and inspiration for its own development.

For four decades, TF has been inspired by an active advisory board, formed by the university professors and leaders/directors of the main Italian schools of family therapy such as Selvini Palazzoli, Selvini Boscolo, Cecchin, Cirillo, Ugazio, Bertrando (for the different Milan’s schools), de Bernart (Florence), D’Elia, Mascellani, Mazzoni, et al. (at the Accademia in Rome), and members of other institutions located in Naples, Sicily, etc.

Twice a year, for 40 years now, the Italian members of the advisory board have been meeting in Rome for a full day to discuss the orientation of the journal, to plan special issues related to specific topics, to discuss the methodology of articles’ revision, and to share research and clinical data, etc.

At the same time, the journal could count on an outstanding International Board with prominent European, North, and South American figures like Salvador Minuchin, Carlos Sluzki, Russel Haber, Mary Hotvedt in the USA, Di Nicola in Canada, Elida Romano in France, Mony Elkaim in Belgium, Flora Auron in Mexico, Tai Castilho in São Paulo, Luisa Castaldi in Chile, and among many others.

Terapia Familiare has been able to create a wide collaboration and friendship among prominent professionals and university professors with different orientation and tradition, elevating the cultural and clinical expertise about families and couples in Italy and inspiring the development of family therapy in Europe and South America. At the same time, TF encouraged the dialogue with psychodynamic and cognitive disciplines as well as with biology and neuroscience. Among the special publications produced through the years, we can report the titles of some of the most successful ones:

Biology and Relationships, The Child in Family Therapy, The Search for Fathers in Family and in Therapy, Families at Risk in a Multicultural Society, The Pioneers of Family Therapy, Ethical Principles of the Therapeutic Intervention, Depression and Systems, and Training’s Itineraries.

TF has a long tradition of collaboration with Family Process and the Journal of Marital and Family therapy. Several relevant articles, which appeared in Family Process, have been translated to Italian and published on TF with a discussant, allowing a mutual enrichment and exchange of seminal ideas and practices. In June 1981, in collaboration with Florence Kaslow, the editor of JMFT, we realized a joint venture, selecting authors and table of contents and publishing simultaneously the same special issue on JMFT and on Terapia Familiare.

In 2011 the journal inaugurated a new section, edited by Maurizio Andolfi and Antonello D’Elia, publishing by now 18 interviews with the pioneers of second and third generation, and spread over five continents. This survey gave to the readers of TF a large panorama and understanding of the status of art of family therapy all over the world and of the presenting issues we have to face today. Some of the common goals of many innovators seem to be the humanization and transformation of the mental health system to avoid the risk of becoming agents of “social control” instead of empowering families and communities in need. There is also a general, strong criticism of the dominant discourse based on the predominance of the medical model and the psychiatric labels of DSM5 to assess people’s problems. The pioneers of family therapy 60 years ago discovered a new way to look at health and pathology and to the relationship between individuals and families. As they had the courage to go against the status quo, today through our journals and professional gatherings, we have to keep a “revolutionary mind” in order to defend and further develop our field and to dialogue with other disciplines within the scientific community.