Monica McGoldrick is not simply a master practitioner of systems-oriented strategies and techniques. She thinks and works directly in the language of systems theory. By watching her engage with challenging couples and families, you will learn the clinical power of this language. In the process, you will see client problems in new and liberating ways, as well as learn to forge powerful alliances and generate meaningful solutions WITH them. These demonstrations and accompanying learning exercises will fill your clinical toolbox to overflowing.

In Assessment and Engagement in Family Therapy, we meet the Zapata family who is struggling with teenage self-harming and parental grief. McGoldrick masterfully demonstrates how to integrate specific techniques into treatment that focuses not only on helping the family manage their presenting issues, but also the underlying systems-oriented background concerns. You’ll see her conduct full family sessions and strategically switch between working with various combinations of family members as well as with 15-year-old Maria. McGoldrick makes authentic connections with this warm but conflicted family, while also using collaboration, direction, and transparency to reinforce their commitment to change.

In Harnessing the Power of Genograms in Psychotherapy the next video, we meet John, a 39-year-old African-American graphic designer who is having marital problems with his pregnant wife Barbara. Mystified and distressed by his pattern of distancing behavior, John opens himself to McGoldrick’s empathetic investigation of the social and historical context of his current struggles. Co-explorers on a journey into his family’s story through McGoldrick’s on-the-spot creation of a genogram, the team uncovers surprising links between his past and present. In her masterful hands, John makes fascinating discoveries and uncovers surprising coincidences, poignant tragedies and inspiring sources of resilience.

In Couples Therapy: A Family Systems Approach, we fast forward 10 years to a rare, powerful and rarely available clinical follow-up. Over six sessions with Barbara and John, now 12 years married with one child, McGoldrick explores their current relationship challenges in the context of each of their own dramatic and palpable family-of-origin relations. Watch and learn from McGoldrick as she works work with John and Barbara around intimacy, communication and trust. In doing so, she helps the viewer to appreciate the personal and clinical challenge of couples therapy which often means bringing family-of-origin members directly into the room, both figuratively and literally.

By watching and engaging with this training series, you will:

• Describe the core elements of a family systems theory orientation to therapy whether working with individuals, couples or families
• Utilize genograms to place clients’ presenting problems in a historical and social context
• Describe the role of contextual factors, e.g. race, gender and culture in assessment and treatment