Conference Agenda

This presentation introduces the Relational Family Therapy model, grounded in contemporary findings from developmental neuropsychology and systemic psychotherapy, which places affects and their regulation at the center of human experience and relational functioning. Early affective and relational experiences with primary caregivers shape brain development and influence patterns of emotional regulation that often manifest in couple and family relationships.

The model will be demonstrated through a live role-play, providing participants with a practical view of key therapeutic concepts and interventions. The role-play will illustrate unconscious affective processes, interpersonal dynamics, and mutual emotional regulation within family systems. Special attention will be given to the therapist’s role as an active co-creator of a safe relational space, enabling recognition, slowing down, and regulation of intense affective states.

Participants will also observe how families function as self-regulating relational systems, in which affects are continuously experienced, communicated, and managed. The demonstration will include examples of dysfunctional affect regulation, such as when children take on the role of emotional regulators, and show therapeutic strategies for transforming these patterns.

The presentation will integrate relevant neuroscientific insights, including the role of the right hemisphere, emotional attunement, and affect regulation, to provide a framework for understanding the clinical rationale behind these interventions.

This interactive session offers participants an observable and practical experience of the Relational Family Therapy approach, emphasizing its application in understanding relational dynamics, supporting affect regulation, and facilitating therapeutic change in family systems.

*The authors would like to acknowledge the financial contribution of the research program ARIS P6-0262 Values in Judeo-Christian Sources and Tradition and Possibilities for Dialogue

This presentation draws on a clinical family therapy case conducted behind a one-way mirror with the involvement of a co-therapy team. It focuses on how specific inner voices emerged and shifted through the supervisory dialogue, and how these voices interacted with those evoked during a complex family therapy process marked by gendered dynamics. Through reflexive processes, the presentation examines how the family’s narratives, relational patterns and gendered positions elicited internal responses in the therapist. These internal responses influenced the therapist’s curiosity and emotional reactivity, and interacted with the outer voices emerging from the co-therapy team and the family.

During the sessions, family-emergent voices elicited protective, moral and gender related responses that at times constrained therapeutic neutrality and shaped the therapist’s stance. In supervision, new inner voices were identified, or previously suppressed ones became more pronounced, allowing the therapist to examine how these positions resonated with or confronted the family’s stories. The supervisory dialogue provided space to differentiate between immediate emotional reactions and therapeutically useful responsiveness, supporting a clearer understanding of how the therapist’s stance was formed within the interaction.

This analysis highlights therapeutic stance as a dynamic, dialogical outcome rather than a fixed role. The convergence of family-evoked and supervision-evoked voices, opened possibilities for therapeutic repositioning, enhanced reflexivity and a more anchored engagement with the clinical material. The implications for supervision emphasize its role in helping therapists navigate internal polyphony and maintain relational curiosity in demanding family therapy contexts.

Systemic family psychotherapy can be conceptualized as an open dialogue space that facilitates both intrapsychic and interpersonal processes of meaning-making, relational transformation, and identity development. Drawing on dialogical self-theory and systemic epistemology, family therapy provides a structured yet flexible context in which multiple internal and relational voices can emerge, interact, and be integrated (Bakhtin, 1981; Hermans & Dimaggio, 2004; Seikkula & Olson, 2003). Within this space, individuals are supported in accessing diverse positions of the self, enhancing reflexivity, emotional awareness, and narrative coherence. Simultaneously, therapeutic dialogue fosters relational polyphony among family members, enabling mutual recognition, emotional attunement, and collaborative re-authoring of dominant problem narratives (Anderson, 1997; Rober, 2005; White & Epston, 1990). Through dialogical processes, rigid interactional patterns may be transformed into more flexible and responsive relational configurations. These therapeutic dynamics unfold within a broader socio-economic and cultural milieu characterized by uncertainty, rapid social change, and shifting family structures, which significantly shape identity formation and relational expectations (McGoldrick, Carter, & Garcia-Preto, 2016; Walsh, 2016). Family psychotherapy thus operates as a socially embedded dialogical practice, supporting individuals and families in navigating complexity, fostering resilience, and co-constructing shared meaning within contemporary contexts. Family psychotherapy can serve as an adjunct in individual long-term therapy, supporting the primary client’s mental health, promoting adaptive coping, and enhancing relational well-being across the family system. The present paper illustrates these dynamics through a clinical vignette, highlighting how family therapy fosters resilience, intrapsychic wellbeing, relational flexibility, and shared meaning-making.

Sexual abuse is a form of trauma that profoundly marks an individual across multiple domains of life and experience, including emotional, bodily, relational, and cognitive functioning. This presentation is grounded in the author’s extensive experience in clinical and scientific research. It presents the role of the therapist in the processing of emotions in psychotherapy with individuals who have experienced sexual abuse. The central focus is on working with flashbacks as one of the core manifestations of traumatic experience. Flashbacks appear as sudden, intense, and often somatically charged re-experiencing of traumatic events, overwhelming the individual’s capacity for emotional regulation and disrupting their sense of safety in the present moment.

The aim of the contribution is to highlight how, within relational family therapy, the therapist can, through presence, the therapeutic relationship, and specific interventions, create a space in which emotions related to traumatic memories can be processed safely. In this context, clinical case examples will be presented, with particular emphasis on the therapeutic relationship as a key healing factor. The presentation addresses essential factors in recognizing signs of dissociation, emotional overwhelm, and bodily responses, as well as the use of interventions such as dual awareness, grounding, slowing down the therapeutic process, and reflecting on emotional content. The therapist’s role is to function as an affect regulator, supporting the client in maintaining contact with the present moment and gradually integrating traumatic experiences into their personal narrative.

In conclusion, the presentation also emphasizes the importance of the therapist’s own emotional regulation, reflection on countertransference responses, and regular supervision. Clinical implications for working with survivors of sexual abuse are presented, contributing to the safe and effective treatment of flashbacks.

*The author would like to acknowledge the financial contribution of the research program ARIS P6-0262 Values in Judeo-Christian Sources and Tradition and Possibilities for Dialogue