This workshop was submitted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in May 2016 Atlanta, GA, USA and was accepted November 13, 2015. This interactive, case-based workshop is designed for clinicians who work with families presenting mental health challenges across cultures. The workshop leader will present Cultural Family Therapy (CFT), a synthesis of systemic family therapy and sociocultural psychiatry. In numerous publications and international workshops over the last 30 years, the workshop leader has elaborated a model of CFT, presented in his book, "A Stranger in the Family: Culture, Families, and Therapy" (NY: Norton, 1997). CFT weaves together family stories that express their mental and relational predicaments and conceptual tools for conducting clinical work.

1. 1
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION
Annual Meeting – Atlanta, GA, USA
May 14-18, 2016
CULTURAL FAMILY THERAPY:
INTEGRATING SYSTEMIC FAMILY THERAPY WITH CULTURAL PSYCHIATRY
Co-Chairs: Vincenzo Di Nicola, M.Phil., M.D., Ph.D., Ellen Berman, M.D.
Speakers: Vincenzo Di Nicola, M.Phil., M.D., Ph.D., Ellen Berman, M.D.
SUMMARY:
This interactive, case-based workshop is designed for clinicians who work with
families presenting mental health challenges across cultures. In Part I, the workshop
leader will present Cultural Family Therapy (CFT), a synthesis of systemic family
therapy and sociocultural psychiatry. In numerous publications and international
workshops over the last 30 years, the workshop leader has elaborated a model of
CFT, presented in his book, A Stranger in the Family: Culture, Families, and Therapy
(1997).
CFT weaves together family stories that express their mental and relational
predicaments and conceptual tools for conducting clinical work. CFT is an ongoing
update of our notions of “family” and “therapy,” on one hand, and of “culture” and
“psychiatry,” on the other. Three basic principles and processes for CFT are: 1) the
deep parallels between the notions of “family” and “culture,” mean that “culture”
supersedes the notion of family “system”; 2) each family is the bearer of the larger
culture(s) in which it is embedded and creates a culture of its own, so the family is
the vehicle for intergenerational cultural transmission, for maintaining culture
(cultural coherence), and for generating its own small-scale cultural adaptations,
yielding three yoked family functions: cultural transmission, cultural
maintenance/coherence, and cultural adaptation; 3) at the heart of systemic family
theory and sociocultural psychiatry is a relational psychology that inverses
theorizing from self to society by redefining the notions of identity and belonging

2. 2
through relations. With its relational and sociocultural approach, CFT is uniquely
responsive to working with families undergoing culture change within and across
cultures. In a world with huge global flows of migrants and refugees instigated by
conflict, disasters, or economic and social reasons, CFT offers clinical tools to
understand and treat families experiencing severe stress due to rapid and massive
culture change. These processes will be explained, illustrated in case examples, and
distributed to the workshop participants in handouts (30 mins).
In Part II, participants will divide into two groups for discussion of CFT theory and
practice, illustrated by two family cases in treatment: 1) an adolescent from South
America whose disturbing experiences only appear as psychotic out of family and
cultural context; 2) a young adult from a multicultural family with parents living in
two countries, Canada and Haiti, whose uncertain, shifting sense of belonging is as
unanchored as her changing tableau of anxio-depressive symptoms. A senior
psychiatrist/family therapist will serve as co-facilitator in the small groups.
Participants will apply the three core principles and processes to these cases (35
mins).
In Part III, the participants will reconvene for an interactive discussion, with a focus
on applying CFT treatment strategies to their own clinical work with family across
cultures (25 mins).
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVE:
At the conclusion of the session, the participant should be able to: 1) Understand
families in cultural context to learn to listen to family stories in order to identify
their mental and relational predicaments as expressions of their unique cultures; 2)
Select with cultural sensitivity, using translators and cultural mediators as needed,
at least three clinical tools that help families tell their trauma stories; 3) Define
culture change and identify its mental health impacts on families as a cascade of
consequences; 4) Learn how to negotiate intervention strategies that are both
culturally congruent and clinically effective for families undergoing culture change.