A fugue in four voices: sounding themes and variations on the reflecting team.

In this account of an on-going reflecting team, a group of 4 therapists describe how they preserve multiple perspectives, yet join their voices to create coherent, meaningful reflections. This reflecting approach emphasizes developing a theme and creating variations on this theme, in a manner resembling a musical fugue. In addition, the practicalities of creating and sustaining a reflecting team in a private practice context are described.

Lessons in collaboration, four years post-Katrina.

Four action researchers present a case study of a project conducted by members of a national family therapy organization and members of a local family therapy institute, which describes their efforts to collaborate with local disaster recovery workers 2 years after Hurricane Katrina. The aim of the collaboration was to create a local action research team to study best practices that strengthen resilience after disaster. The authors discuss choice points and dilemmas faced in finding collaborative partners and in clarifying what constitutes an invitation to work in a community.

A family-based mental health program of recovery from state terror in Kosova.

Family processes of communication, mutual support, and sustenance of cultural values can play vital roles in recovery from psychological and material damage in societies afflicted by terror. This is particularly the case when a campaign of terror has specifically targeted family life and its traditions, when the culture is one whose identity has been centered in its families, and when public mental health resources have been scarce. At the end of the 1999 war in Kosova, the Kosovar Family Professional Educational Collaborative (KFPEC) was initiated to counter mental health sequelae of war in Kosova.

A family approach to severe mental illness in post-war Kosovo.

This study describes the effects of a psychoeducational multiple-family group program for families of people with severe mental illness in post-war Kosovo that was developed by a Kosovar-American professional collaborative. The subjects were 30 families of people with severe mental illnesses living in two cities in Kosovo. All subjects participated in multiple-family groups and received family home visits.

The heart of the matter 2: integration of ecosystemic family therapy practices with systems of care mental health services for children and families.

Many children in this country do not receive the mental health care they need. At the same time, a nationwide movement known as systems of care is providing innovative services for families and children. This article links the ideas inherent in systems of care with ecosystemic family therapy principles and practices.