Anne Holloway, Private Practitioner and President of AAFT

In Systemic Stories this week, Leonie and Laura interview Anne Holloway from Perth, Western Australia. Anne is a Family Therapist in private practice, AHA Counselling, and the current President of the Australian Association of Family Therapy (AAFT). We learn about: 

• Anne's journey of becoming a systemic family therapist and her current private practice work.
• Supporting individual clients to understand themselves as part of a wider family and system.
• Thinking about our role as therapists and the power of this client-therapist relationship in our clinical work. Including practical tips for therapists. 
• Anne's journey of becoming the President of AAFT.
• Exciting news about the upcoming International Family Therapy Association (IFTA) conference being held in Adelaide, Australia in 2027. 
• An update on the changes within AAFT and future vision for this peak body.

This podcast isn't about a "right" way to be systemic.  It's about privileging multiple perspectives through sharing a range of systemic stories.

Laura is recording on the lands of the Turrbal People.  Leonie is recording on the lands of the Yugambeh People.

Acknowledgement of Country

We are honoured to be on the ancestral lands of the Traditional Owners of the areas we are recording from.  We acknowledge the First Australians as the Traditional Custodians of this continent, whose cultures are among the oldest living cultures in human history.   We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples across the nation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everyone, welcome back to Laura and Leone Systemic Stories. I'm Laura and Leone's with me, and we've got the wonderful Ann Halloway joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hi everyone, and today we are very excited to be speaking with Anne. Anne is a family therapist in private practice, AHA Counseling, and provides relationship and family counselling, family sensitive practice, supervision and training. And she's the president of the Australian Association of Family Therapy, which is our peak body for family therapy in Australia. And a big thanks to Anne coming to us from Perth, Western Australia, keeping in mind a little time difference. So welcome, Anne.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Hello, Leone. Hello, Laura. It's lovely to see you. Yeah, this is a real honor. Thank you for inviting me to do this. I'm very curious about how we might do this podcast. I think it's something we should do more of in this contemporary space. I think it's interesting. Everyone listens to podcasts these days. So yeah, thanks for doing this.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Oh, you're very welcome. And I think maybe in terms of like doing the podcast, so one of the things that we kind of first like to do is just get to know our guests a little bit. So I guess we would just say, obviously, we've met you through AFT and through conferences and kind of really interested in finding out a little bit more about yourself. And we normally ask, like, how did you first get introduced to systemic ideas? So do you think that would be a good place to start a bit about you and your entry into systemic family therapy?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah, I had to think about that, and I was thinking, now, where do I start with that? You know, we often say that we uh training begins many years ago, you know, in our own families. And I thought, do I start with my own family? Because that's where the first introduction is, really, to some extent. Um, you know, I bought I was lived in two countries when I was up to age of 14, both in Malaysia and um the UK, and my father's English, my mother's Burmese, and then at 14 we migrated to Perth, WA. And I had a pretty idyllic life up to then, but coming here migrating was the first time the family actually experienced quite a lot of hardship. And what impact it had on us as a family, because we were only our own family and we had no extended family, was that we really became very knitted, close knitted, um, bonded, supported each other, and that still really stays today. Um, so it had a profound effect. It also changed my parents a lot in terms of my mother, then became the worker, my dad was more at home, and so that shift in roles was something that was really challenging and struggling for them, but they we all came through it really well. So, and I found that having that experience and then going to university and learning a little bit about um in sociology that other people also have difficulties in life was the first time I started to think I wanted to do social work and I wanted to help people. So, so I did a first degree first and then did two years undergraduate social work at UWA. And um, it was there that was introduced, of course, first to systems theory because we always did systems theory and social work, and we did also group work and community development work. So we were already in this in the understanding of what a system was, and more than just the family, it was society as well and communities. So um, I think that's where I was first introduced to the idea. And as a family, we were all studying at the time at university, we'd have discussions around the dinner table, and they'd always talk about problems in the world. And my um brothers and sisters say, Well, Lam will say it's the system, it's the problem with the system. But I meant the economic, political, social system, you know. Yeah. Um, so obviously we're starting already without realizing that it was there. And then I really came across it first when I, after working in child protection for quite a few years, I managed to be employed at um the Princess Margaret Hospital, which was the children's hospital in Perth, that's now Perth Children's Hospital. And I was designated the neonatal ward in cardiology, genetic counselling. And across all of that, there were babies and children, of course, who who died, and so parents were dealing with massive loss and grief. So that was the first time I really started to do some kind of counselling. In child protection, there wasn't so much of that, it was more community work. And then would you lo and behold, Malcolm Robinson came over and ran, facilitated a one-day workshop. Um, so I was an employee at the time, so I went to that. Um, and it was interesting. I started to get an understanding a little bit of systems theory. Like Malcolm is very good at the theoretical side. I did like his idea of therapeutic letters, so I started using therapeutic letters in my work with parents who had lost children. Um, so that was my first introduction. Then I ended up in a community health centre in a regional town called Bussleton. And up to then I had kind of specialized a little bit, you know, through child protection, family domestic violence, um, then the loss and grief with children. Um, but in that I had, and one day I would have a young parent come in to talk about her issues with her three, four-year-old in parenting. Then I'd have a man in his 50s say, or his wife had left him and he wasn't doing very well, um, to another woman who was dealing with her parents dying of cancer. I was thinking, I don't know what to do. You know, like this is I I can't be an expert in all these issues. Um that's made me start to think about what do I need, what skill base do I need to be able to do this position. I also did a lot of group work as well, like personal growth, stress management, parenting. Um, and it was Andrew Ralph came down and he did a one-day workshop. Andrew Ralph is quite well known in Perth as a family therapist. He'd worked at Warwick Child and Adolescent Mental Health, and he came down and did one day workshop, which was interesting. And then Aldo Gagoni came down, I think, the next year and did at least one to two days, I think. But it was watching Aldo do experiential work that made me think, yes, that's it for me, that's what I want to do. Because his presence was gentle, real, human, never put anybody down. You know, if we were telling him about a case we were working with, he would work with it very beautifully. So you would just get the message about what you needed to do without actually being told directly what to do. Um, so of course, I then enrolled into the one-week intensist that he was running. So that would have been about 19, 92, and then I was actually, you know, um, I was a disciple by then into family therapy and systems. And um, so I did the two-year training in 93, 94, and then two years supervision after that. So that's when I was exposed, and I made the decision then in 1994 that I would do private practice because I recognised that in government agencies you was limited in being able to work systemically, and that's where I wanted to do. So I set myself up as a relationship and family therapist in that year. I'd been about 10 years experience then as a social worker, so I was fairly solid in what I was doing. So I felt very quite confident to go into private practice. Um, and yes, and it just took off. So I've been doing that ever since alongside many other things.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

But oh, I love that introduction that you've had, Anne. What are um so many names in there, so many um different ways of thinking about how you want to work. And I love that you found this landed on systems thinking to help you with that. Tell me a little bit about what that looks now. Are you still seeing such the variety of clients? The you know, the 50-year-old man, the young parent, and yeah, tell me what it looks like now.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

That's a very good question, Laura. Um, finally, you know, I do have a variety, and that's what I do like about private practice. Um, so I will still get many teenagers with anxiety and depression. Um, and then couples, so I do do look do a lot of couple therapy, and I really enjoy couples' work, and that's always very different. Each couple is really unique and different, so I enjoy that. Um, two, sometimes I have the you know, the adult um son or daughter wanting to work with their parents through issues that occurred in the past, and they want to be able to reconcile that and have a better relationship with their parents. So I do quite a bit of that. Um, I don't see young children a lot as much, but when I have, I've often, if they're three, four, I did a bit of play therapy in camps, and I was working in child and adolescent mental health, and so I often refer the younger ones to play therapy for individual work, but I will see the whole family from time to time. So, but I've it's definitely gone more into the mental health because I did work in adult mental health and child and adolescent mental health, and I'm an accredited mental health social worker when it first began, really. I was able to be accepted as I'd worked in that field. So I just so have drifted towards more of that, and then of course, the the neurodiverse now as well. Yeah, I get a lot of the ADHD and neurodiverse um, you know, teenagers and adults as well, particularly adults in relationships. That's fascinating with one who has ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah. Um, and and so I don't know what it's like in Western Australia, but I over here in Queensland in my private practice and when I talk with other clinicians and and trainees, especially um people going through psychology programs, because it's very, very kind of a different focus than family therapy and very sort of individual. And then, you know, um whether clients are coming under a mental health care plan or just coming along, um, I often find there's that first piece of work of trying to get people um to think systemically, um, although it's definitely easier in private practice because they see your website and and what you're coming along for. But I guess I was really curious when people come as individuals or when they're sort of presenting their teenagers, what um what sort of challenges are there, or sort of what's your process around um bringing in the systemic lens?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

That's a good question. Um look, well, I'll tell you as um a young lass that I had, she was 15 when she came, and um it was for anxiety. Her parents were already attending um William Street with Aldo for couples counselling. So they mentioned that they were struggling, she was struggling, so he suggested she come to me. So in that session, um, I just when I meet teenagers, and I like to offer if the teenagers have got buy-in and they want to come, then I'm happy to see them with the parents and the teenager initially, and then when I have the teenager on their own, I try to learn a bit about the teenager, who they are, what school they go to, their friendships, their hobbies. And then in this case, I started asking about her family a little bit. And um, what came out was that she was the oldest, but her mother had breast cancer four years, diagnosed with breast cancer four years earlier. So she would have been about 11 around that time, and she just stepped up to help her dad to manage the rest of the family, and they did not know what the outcome was going to be of this treatment of them of the mother. And then when we talked about, and then I do a mapping of the anxiety, when did it start, you know, what happened. And it was really interesting that we could both see once we actually looked at that, that that anxiety began when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. And at the end of the session, she said to me, That's that's amazing, because you know that psychologist that I went to see, um, she had two sessions with her. She said she knew nothing about me. She was just working on CBT and anxiety, but she knew nothing and no background about this girl and um the context that this was happening in. So the to me, mapping the genogram, whether it's a you know, 14, 15-year-old or whether it's an adult individual, like I've had another woman, she'd be in her 40s with anxiety, you know, after a little while talking about what was happening after a conversation. I said, Can we can we have a look at your family? As soon as we went back to she realized that her brother had been very bullying towards her and it had been a very difficult time for her growing up as a teenager. And those connections, I think, are like aha moments for the client as well.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

And I think what it does is it's it makes them realize that this they're not mad, it's not a big problem with them. It's it makes more sense as to how this became and generated into such an issue.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

So I love that, and so it sounds like mapping the context for your clients is kind of a pivotal moment where they can start to see their context, but you also learn more about the context as well. And so, did did you mention geneograms as a main tool that you use? Or timelines, like I'm curious about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Oh, absolutely. I always use timelines a lot. Um, couples, I'll use timelines. Um, so we'll work through, you know, their ex the time when they met, how long, how they married, you know, but that has such an impact. And each incident when a child was born, what was happening, what was going on in their lives. Sometimes I'll use eco-maps as well. So um, we used to use that a lot in social work, actually, when we used to do assessments in social work, we did eco maps. So I'd often use an eco-map as well. So all of those are really good assessment tools, I think, and getting a sense, a wider lens on the issue, basically. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I I think um, Anne, because obviously we all love the wider lens. Um, but do you think like that's like how you get buy-in? Like, because I'm thinking about my practice and trainees, and I'm often kind of speaking with people in training about if we can help people see themselves systemically, if we can help them see themselves as part of a system, um, it almost helps shift the focus from that person needs to change, that person fix my child. It's it just I don't know, like is buy-in like a good way to describe it, or would you say it differently?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

That's an interesting way of putting it, buy-in. Um, I think it's it's something that's actually you you're doing in the room with the clients.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

And I think they, to some extent, there's a certain level of um, well, the you need the therapeutic relationship basically to be able to do it. So there's a level of trust with the therapist. And um, so it's about it's interesting because I'm training at the moment, first-year trainees, and um, they've never done systemic work, they've worked with individuals, and I keep thinking, how do I get them to understand how they have to look at the interaction patterns that are going on in a situation? So, in this case, they have we have a uh a mum who's on her own with a 15-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl, and of course, the there's the lifespan is impacting with this young man at 15 who is asserting himself and his independence, and of course, there's many arguments at home between him and his and his mother, and so this happens actually in the in the therapy room, you know. And I watch the trainees just sitting there, uh, and I think, oh, that's interesting that they they're not intervening, you know, they don't know how to, at this stage in their learning, how to slow that process down and how to enter. So Richie always talks, Murti and Dolphie talks about when do you enter into the system. And so you are actually, so I don't think you have to necessarily let the clients know about the system, you work with the system. And in doing that, um, that's when they might get an understanding. It's not just about me, it's about uh not about that, sorry, it's not about that person. There's me involved in this as well. Um, one of my colleagues was telling me what she does sometimes is with a family, she'll get a ball of yarn, and then she will talk about what's happening for maybe the teenager, and then they roll a bit of yarn on their finger, and then what's happening for the parent, what's your thoughts and feelings, and then they roll the yarn around their finger, then it goes to the next person, and then she says, When you and when you start pulling on that, the whole starts reverberating, so it has an impact on the whole system. I thought, what about some unique and visual way? And then in this situation, she said, the mother, all the yarn was going to her, and then she looked at it and she said, It's me, isn't it? I need to focus more on me. I don't need to focus on that teenager, I need to be looking at myself as well. So I think it's the tools and techniques that you might use. Sometimes I do it with family sculpting. Um, sometimes it might be through they do art work together, or you say, I say, let's let's draw a shield about your family and your values and um what you know about your family, what you would like to be in your family. So I think it's the work you're actually doing with clients that um has the system. Like I wouldn't be explaining it to them, but I'll be just doing it in the moment. Yes. Does that what does that answer that?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, it really um it really kind of gets me thinking about what you were saying earlier about that experiential approach that you really appreciated and being kind of in in the process and and in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Umginia Satiya does it a little bit differently, like she would say, like the other way to do it is through the thinking, isn't it, process. So sometimes she would say, like, um, there's a beautiful video clip of Virginia with a with again another mother and a son, older son, and the mother goes to touch the boy on her on his knee and he pulls it away, and um, and you can see the frown on his face. Um, and she Virginia starts asking the boy, What do you think your mother was trying to say to you when she put your hand on your knee? And he said, Oh, I think she's trying to control me, and so she's trying to quiet me down. And and Virginia would go, Oh, okay, that's interesting. I'm wondering, could it mean something else? Like, do you think it could be she's actually saying, I care about you? And so she would introduce another thought or idea to the client through that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah, beautiful. I love those examples, and I'm gonna take you back. You said something that caught my attention that um there's a moment as a therapist that sometimes you have to slow down and think really carefully about when you enter the interaction or when you enter the system. Can can you tell me more about that, how that looks in your practice? Like, how do you find moments to slow down? Because I know that can be really hard when things are charging in that therapy room.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Yeah, look, it's not easy. I I have to tell that message to myself all the time as well. Sometimes I think, oh, I've gone too fast, I've gone too fast. Um, I think it's taking that step back, um, not I think buying into or getting sucked into the anxieties of the family, but being able to interject at a point in a very gentle way, um, when things are starting to escalate. I find I've got to slow that process down. Or what I will do is I hear something that's really interesting, and they've gone on further, and I'd like to just come back to this point because I thought that was really interesting. And what I often find I do is I'll write a phrase on my my page and my notes. Oh, that's an interesting phrase. So I write it down and I go come back to it. And so it's about tracking in your mind because you can't literally stop clients in the flow, sometimes very difficult. For me, it's waiting for a pause, and then I will go back and come in. And I say, I think this is really important place for us to do some work with. Um, yeah, so do it, try to do it that that way.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

But it's I can hear so much intentionality there, you know, in your thinking, you're thinking about what you might highlight or slow down again. You're really aware of yourself in that moment, about where you're getting caught up in it. And then it's like an intentional step. And I think, you know. That's one of the hardest parts sometimes is to find those moments of thinking behind the scenes in a family session.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Yeah, yeah. You're using everything, aren't you, when you're in a session? You're using your knowledge base that you have. Um, you're using your experience, you're using your own life experience, you're using how you experience and feel in the moment in that time. So it's all of that. You see, I have to say it's a head, heart, gut hand.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Um, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Because the head is your thinking, the heart is your compassion and empathy for the person. Your gut is like, oh, this is important. I I know this is important, I need to do something with this. And for me, the hand is then doing something. Um, in that I've written that down.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

I'm gonna post it like that on my wall.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Me too. Um, and and I've gotta say, you and it's obviously like experience and training, um, you make it sound well, I don't want to say easy because it's not easy, but you make it sound like it flows, you know, kind of kind of smoothly. And so I just wanted to acknowledge for people as well that um you are bringing that wealth of experience with how you're pulling things together. And um, and then I was gonna ask, like, what do you with all of that experience, like what do you still find challenging?

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Hmm. Do you know what I find more challenging working with individuals, some individuals? I find it easier to work with more than one person in the room, but I find it more difficult to work with one person in the room. And the most challenging one would be the client who I find has got an entrenched way of thinking about the situation, and there doesn't seem to be any ability to be able to shift that thinking, move from that, and there's a personality flavor in there as well, and I I do have a gut reaction to that. I find that difficult. Um, I don't really want to work with this person, actually. I don't know if I am going to like. Um, I remember Jeff Young doing a presentation at a conference talking about certain clients, and he said, you know, that client who cancels and you get you're relieved that they're not coming. I do think, you know, we're human beings, first and foremost, meeting another human being. And is there a connection? And if there isn't a connection, I'm not sure you're going to be able to do the work. So I've often stopped and said, I'm not sure if I'm the right person here. But um, yeah, so it's more an individual person that I'll have difficulty with. Um, I don't have difficulty with this, I had this father and adult son one time yelling at each other in the in the session, and really, particularly the dad, he goes off and he escalates up and up and up, and the young man goes with him up, up and up and up and up. And I said, You have to stop. You cannot start yelling in this room, and I'll tell you why. The one good reason is because the person next door is a person who does um hypnotherapy, and her room is really quiet, and we've just got this thin wall in between, and you're going to really disrupt their session by screaming at each other. Yeah, yeah. I can do I can interject in those, or like a teenager who is going off, I can calm, I can calm them. But I've got other people in the room, you see, to be able to somehow the other person in the room helps to monitor it a little bit. But when it's an individual, I suppose it's me and that person, and then whatever's going on between us that isn't, it hasn't got a good fit somehow.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

And I think when like when I think about your experiential background and when you talk about process and finding the place to sort of interject gently, um, it gets me thinking there's a lot more to work with when there's more than one person in the room. Um, and when there's more than one person in the room and a lot more to work with, then you have those, I guess, like I would say like multiple perspectives that can sometimes help individuals shift and see things differently.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Absolutely. You're right, Leone, which is much harder to do with an individual.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

I mean, I can do that with an individual by using like empty chair or asking if the person was here, what do you think they would be saying about this? Yeah. But it's that person who won't do the work, you know, who's just got this intense rage, unwilling to take any responsibility for their part in the process that I get very stuck with. Um, it's timing. I think it's a lot of timing as well. I remember one man actually, as an individual, did come to me and it was interesting because I said to him, you know, I wonder if you're ready for change, because this is going to require you to do something quite differently in your life. And um, he said, Oh, I never have even thought about that. And I said, Well, maybe you need to go away. And he was actually, I did connect with him and and felt really had a had a relationship. And he said, You know what? I will go away and think about that. And then he contacted me and he said, No, I'm not ready. So he didn't return. Yeah, so it was interesting too. So that's a bit like when you were asking Joni, how do you get in a buy and that not necessarily systemic, but for every person who comes to therapy, I think sometimes they have the expectation that you are going to provide the answer or do the change, but it's actually themselves that has to do something. And sometimes individuals don't understand that. Whether they're individuals or families, they expect you to fix the fix the problem, fix the child, fix that person, fix my partner. Um, then everything will be fine.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, it's like um our clients sometimes invite us into a position. That's not necessarily how we see ourselves wanting to be positioned.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Yes, that's right. Yeah, and that's when couples, it's it's uh easier to then ask questions about what they need to be doing differently, not what the other person may do, but what do you think you could do? Um, and that is when I do do a bit of that psychoeducation of you know, it's really more about not changing the other person, but you're going to have to look at changing something in yourself, even if it is just a different way in thinking about the issue. And so that's how I might explain a system to them in that that way. Yeah. Which goes back to your earlier question, really, about how you describe a system to clients. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

And I can just hear how this systemic frame has shaped your kind of clinical practice and how you understand yourself in the therapy room and how you understand um families that come to you. I'm imagining that passion is the reason that you got so involved with the Australian Association of Family Therapy. Am I right? That's right.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah, I think um, yes, I I've always volunteered. Um I've always thought right from the start, I thought working systemically was far more effective than just working with an individual. So I started beginning teaching pretty quickly. Um, little little places like at a community health center. I worked for another um training organization that were teaching psychotherapists, and they had a unit in there on systems and working also, and so I was asked to do that part of the unit. Um, and so that was not just theory, it was actually clinical-based training. So I've always then that passion took me into training, and then I started training at William Street Family Therapy Centre in the early 2000s. Um, and at that point, a bit mid-2000s, um, Aldo actually decided to start up the West Australian Family Therapy Association again. So I got involved in that. We put on symposiums, we ran professional development workshops locally, and then of course, then Aft started to think about becoming a national body and not just the different states. Because of course, you had Queensland, Quaft, and Rufter and Vaft, and um so yeah, so then um one of my colleagues was at the time representing WA in that, and then she had some personal issues in her own life and said, Look, I really can't take this on. And I said, You know what? I'll have a go. Um so I went over and sort of represented WA and but didn't leave basically. So I was the state rep there for many, many years, yeah. Um, and still ran lots of professional development events and conferences and was involved in committees for the conferences. Then I took a break because it running actually facilitating a conference and being convening a conference is a lot of work. And I was a bit tired, and my dad had died that year as well, so I really wanted to have a bit of a break. Um and then it was then we decided, the few of us here in Perth, that we would actually try to find out what was happening in after because the conferences hadn't occurred, and so that's when I put my hand up and nominated to be president. And to tell you the truth, I really didn't care if I didn't get it either, you know. So I had no real investment in it. I thought, yeah, I'll have a go, I'll put my hand up. Um, yeah, and so and it is interesting, it is it's been really helpful in actually in Perth, we are very isolated geographically from the eastern states border, and I never went to annual conferences while I was young. I had young kids, I didn't have the finances and the time to attend annual conferences. One of my colleagues was saying, Oh, Anne, you should go to one of the family therapy conferences in Australia, it's fantastic, but I didn't because I really couldn't afford it. So then eventually I started going, and I thought, yeah, this is really what it did for me was energized me, it was mixing with the same kind of people, the same way of thinking, exposed you to new ideas. So I enjoyed that. And with the role of president, it's it's even expanded it a bit more in that, you know. I I think, oh, I don't know about the Family Systems Institute in in New South Wales, and then there's you in Queensland, and you know, I really know at a deeper level, um, you know, Jen Macintosh at Boovery. Um, I did know Sophie a lot because Sophie was very involved in in Vaft and AFT. Um, so that that I love the networking part um of the role and um meeting different people, and I think that expands your knowledge base as well because you talk and with each other about your ideas and systems and the work you're doing. So yeah, yeah, it's been interesting. I've been I have enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Um and and just listening to you talk, I I wonder if there's some overlap because one of the things that we're really interested in is also that sense of connection and um and sort of nationwide community, but we are really big country, right? So even so where we are in Southeast Queensland is really a long way from you know, kind of Adelaide and Melbourne, and um, so this sense of how do we come together, how do we keep good energy, you know, as a family therapy community, um that that's something that I was just kind of like you know, taking out of what you were saying. Is is that like a good fit?

SPEAKER_02 33:53

It is, and it's it's it's interesting, isn't it? It's how do you become a national body as well with that in that vast country? Um, so uh my personal view is that it has to be two A, we're very fortunate with COVID in one level because it introduced us to this online and we've all become much more familiar with it and willing and open to it. Um, and so this has been good in terms of being able to run meetings at a national level because when I was state rep, we'd have three in-person meetings a year, which really wasn't enough to really progress the association. But now that we meet monthly online, that makes a difference. We are also, but I do think that within your local areas, doing in-person events is really important, and I'm trying to encourage it, and I keep talking about it at conferences or different places about you know, we'll support you if you want to do something in your area to bring like-minded people and have a sense of community of systemic therapists. Um it's not easy because it does require a bit of work, and it is a voluntary position, then that you're going to take time out of your own work to do something, but it's very rewarding as well. It's a sense of um when you when you actually achieve that. Um we are fortunate that after the last conference, I mean, the first two years in this role was really just really getting all the governance worked out. We have that now, and we've we're quite solid have a solid base, I think, and secure. Um, and you know, Michael Hunt, who's my mentor through this role as president, he's always been giving the analogy that I'm flying the plane and building it, or we're flying the plane and building it at the same time. But for me, the analogy now is like we're ship we're ship sailing in karma waters. And um, and it feels now we've got time to take bring our head up and have a look. Um, so we are doing a meeting or stakeholders around the country. We did an in-person in Adelaide earlier this year, and I ran a workshop um introducing systemic mapping to um um relationship Australia clinicians, and that was really lovely. But it's really lovely having a members' dinner and meeting people in person, and again, energy was revived and um people are excited. Um, so that was really helpful to do that. So then the vice president said, We've oh, because Joanne um um from um PACFA, she says she goes around the country as the CEO of PACFA meeting people, and the vice president we need to do that, and I said, Do we? Um so we are so we're coming to you in September to Queensland to meet with the trainers there. We're going to Sydney, then later in the year we're going to Melbourne and Perth. And um, we want to just create connections and relationships with the training organizations. What is the relationship between ATT and the training organizations? And then we're going to have a dinner with the members, so we meet the members as well. Um, and so that's really, really interesting to do. That's um to be able to actually meet people in person. And yeah, at those places, I will encourage anybody to do anything they want to do. You know, if they want to run a symposium, if they want to run a workshop, um, and they want to partner with AFT, we'll support it and provide assistance where we can. So you it's the members who keep it alive. We can only do so much because we just haven't got all the time, we're limited time and capacity. But if everyone did a little bit, then that would help, I think, to revive and um have a sense of a community of family therapists in their state or in their local area. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

So and I just kept thinking while you were talking, you had the ship metaphor, the ship in Karma Waters. And then I was picturing it a bit like a cruise ship that, you know, your your visits around to everyone and bringing the good energy and having remembered um dinners. Is that the because I was going to say what direction do you want the ship to go in? But then I I was thinking more, it's how do we want the ship to sail? And we want to have really good energy on the ship, and we want to have really good connection, and we want it to, this is just my perspective. You feel free to agree or disagree, but we want to have such a good um vibe on the ship that we get other people who want to come and get on our ship. Um, because I would love to see our membership grow.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Yes, yes, it's it is important. So it is a struggle of how we do that, um, which will be the next chapter, I think, in terms of like the the direction, really, is that we are thinking, you know, with our strategic plan now that we will try to professionalise the association. So the first step has been reviewing the constitution. So that's where we're going to accompany Limited by Guarantee. So we will then be able to have a board and then employ a CEO. Now, having a I think that I've been really behaving like a CEO rather than just a president. I talked to Takeshi Tamura, who was the president of the Asian Academy of Family Therapy when I first started, saying, Oh, what do you do, Takeshi? He says, I don't have to do anything. He said, I'm just it's just an honorary position. It's Viviana, she does all the work.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I know that you were doing a lot, Anne. It's a more than it's an honorary position here.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Running around Mike Matt doing this. This is a daily, daily task. Um so, but I think once we have that CEO, this is when it can be that the board will be clear about directing the CEO and it will have experienced family therapists who know where they want to go. So we want to professionalise the family therapy. That is going it that is going to take many years, really, um, to do that. So I think that is the direction we are going to be going into. And I think it is significant and important to do. Um, we have to do a lot to actually have us recognized in government, registered by NDIS, Medicare, or those other bodies. So it is a bit of work. And then you have to, you know, advocate and um work with politicians. Um, it's not impossible, it is possible. There's other people have done it. There's a there's a what is it called? There was this site, this association that I went to recently that Jason invited me to, and um the International Society for Psychological and Social approaches to psychosis. And I thought, oh, that's really interesting. But one of the women there was the CEO of Community Mental Health Australia, and they have got, they're trying to get, they've got natotherapy recognized in the mental health field as an intervention and treatment, but she wants to get open dialogue recognised and contemporary approaches. So that's like what Harleen Anderson is doing, you know, like she does contemporary conversations with clients. And she's seen the health minister. And I thought, wow, I think she's done it.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

I love that, Anne. I just think too, you know, it's almost like what you were saying about when you got exposed to this way of thinking, it was so helpful in your clinical practice. And that's what Leonie and I see too, you know, through with our trainees coming through, is everyone loves this framework that and it's so helpful, particularly with the complexity, I guess, in the community and the clients that we see. I would like to also share with you, I love the AFT conferences. I call it my cozy corner of systemic practice because you go to these conferences and you're hearing clinical examples, you're and it's it's just the way you think. So um I'm super excited to hear that the IFTA, the International Family Therapy Conference, is also coming to Australia next year. So um I'm excited to sit in an international cozy corner as well.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Yes, uh, thank Laura. And um we met the other day for the first time with um William Hebert, who is the he's the president of IFTA. And um so yeah, and I also meet, I also meet online actually with the other presidents, like the American one. I meet with the Italian Umberta Telfner, and and I've met Martin Nies a few times at the Asian Academy of Family Therapy. They're with the European Family Therapy Association. The Canadian guy is full of energy and excitement, so Andrew, and so we meet now and then, you know, about once every two months, so that's really helpful. But they I've never been to an IFTA conference, so I don't know what they're like, the Congress. And they they were telling me, Oh, you know, sometimes not so good with some of their papers, and um, it's kind of like rush, rush, rush, rush. We are going to, we've decided we're going to have a day and a half of just Australian sort of Australian mini conference before the IFTA one. And I just found out that the part that Australia can have in the IFTA is going to be a good welcome to country. We really want a really long welcome to country. So we recognise First Nations people to all the international visitors, and the other one is that we're allowed to do, we're going to invite um keynote speakers for a panel to talk about Australia and family therapy in Australia. But besides that, we don't have any input. So the next bullet I'm going to I'm going to suggest to please can you put in many papers so we get a lot of the Australian content into the IFTA conference. Um, they will make the decision, of course. They will obviously have their selection panel, who will decide what papers, but I'm going to encourage Everyone to put papers into that. And the the day and a half one we have with the Australian part, I think would be nice if it's more workshops than papers being presented. So it's clinical-based workshops and we'll have a conference dinner. Um I'm excited. I'm encouraged.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

And I have been to an IFTA conference. I was lucky enough to present a few a couple papers actually at the um conference in Japan. And one of the reasons I'm super excited for this is um my experience was one of like diversity of perspectives and cultures that came with a real openness and community spirit and respect. And um I absolutely loved seeing how um different parts of the world, different family therapy ideas had kind of taken off, but um just the the atmosphere of um of collaboration and openness. I'm really hoping um to see that again in Adelaide.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

How long ago was that, Leone, that you went to that was 2024. Oh, good. Okay, all right. Okay. We were meant to go to Bergen in Norway. That was um what our plan was so that we could actually connect with them. But unfortunately, because of the the war in the Middle East, you know, we all decided that we were not brave enough to go. And I didn't want to go and have a really long flight either, so we gave we gave up on that. Um, we will go to the Asian Academy um in a couple of weeks, and again we'll promote IFTA there because Asia is so close to us, and you know, the Asians they're very passionate about family therapy and very interested and um open. Um, so it will be lovely to see if we can invite many of them. But even like Amberta from Tittily said, I've never been to Australia, she said. And so maybe I'll come, you know, so it will be great. So yeah, but I just thought it would I think it's good to meet the international visitors, yeah. But I think it's our opportunity to showcase Australia as much as possible as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Yeah, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

I love that. And and as our conversation comes to the end, I was thinking all about our conversation. We've talked about your clinical work, we've talked a lot about AFT as well. I guess I'm wondering, is there something that you want to share with the systemic family therapist listening? Whether they're early in their career, they're just kind of dipping their toes and into systemic practice. What's one thing that you think would be really helpful for them to think about and a few tips and tricks for them to take away?

SPEAKER_02 46:42

That's interesting. I think first and foremost, you have to be yourself. You have to be real. Like I remember when I first started working in child and adolescent mental health, and I had been very experienced by then, you know, 30 years of work. And one of my the supervisor who was a peer supervisor said to me, You're not really a child and adolescent mental health worker. And I was thinking, I don't know what she means by that. And I was thinking, that's right, no, I'm Anne Holloway first and foremost, and then I do this kind of work, and um, whether it's you know systemic therapy, whether I'm learning how to work in a child and adolescent mental health team. Um, so I thought that was an interesting thing to say because I thought I don't want to be a child and adolescent mental health worker, that's not my label. So I think it's about first and foremost being yourself and being a human being who's interested in other human beings. Um, so that helps with your curiosity. Um and I think you have to um practice, keep practicing, practice, practice, practice, have a go, experiment. Um, don't feel disheartened if something doesn't work, any intervention or doesn't work, you can talk it through with the family at the next session, you can talk through your own relationship and therapeutic relationship. I think that is the most important as well, is the sense of self and your therapeutic relationship. And as Irving Yallam says in his book, The Gift of Truth, to him the therapeutic relationship has to be talked about. Like you talk about it in the session, you don't just guess it and and say, Yes, I have a therapeutic relationship. You ask, how is this for you? You know, what is what's happening here that works, what doesn't work, well, how do you how are you finding the therapy? Um, and he will do that on a regular basis in his sessions, which I really like. Yeah, so I think it's perseverance as well, and also just believing in this kind of work. Um if you don't believe in it, you're not really going to take it on board. Um, because it isn't easy, it is it is difficult to have more than one person in the room. And I've I have seen clinical psychologists in their training really struggle with it. Um, and what I've said to them is that it's no different. You can do individual psychodynamic work with your client, with another client there who's witnessing it. Then you've got to learn how do you bring the other person into that. Um, because you it you do still do that kind of work, so um, yeah, it's just encouraging them that um to to keep practicing and it somehow it comes. You've got to it takes years to learn, I think, and it takes years to integrate it into yourself that it just becomes natural, but at first it it won't be. Um, and you need you need supports, resources, supervision to help you along the way with it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Um, and I just loved listening to that and even just kind of the warmth in your voice when you were talking about, you know, it's okay to make mistakes and you can talk about the relationship and get supervision. And um, I just really love that because I know like it is a different skill set, say, from my initial training in psychology and and when I talk with people who get a bit nervous about more than one person in the room. Um, but I just was really hearing that we don't have to be perfect and we don't have to be positioned as experts and we can collaborate and and work on building that relationship.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Yes, that's right. Yeah, I think if you're more relaxed, it it's easier than coming in with a lot of anxiety. I've got my training group next week, and they we have offered the family to come in and have an extra session if they want. The the 15-year-old boy, when we mentioned it, he goes, No, like the way he was very clear. And in some ways, I don't want them to come in next week because this gives me the opportunity to play with the with the um trainees, and I'm going to get them. We're gonna role play with the family, we're gonna work as co-therapists, and I'm just gonna say, do whatever you want to do. No one's gonna be watching you, just have a go and experiment and play, and and then we can just have fun with it rather than taking it all too seriously. But I think that creativity, that fun, that play really helps as well. Because of course, of course, they're all really anxious to get it right and and it's very very serious, you know, and don't want to harm people, which is understandable, you don't want to harm anybody. Um, but if you yourself and you have a good relationship, at any point, if you've got a relationship good enough for with a client that can say, Oh, that was challenging or found that very difficult, or can even come back after a session. I've had a psychologist come back and say to me, Wow, I was so shocked when you shared a little bit of something about yourself, um, because we're not allowed to do that. I thought, wow, that's amazing. I'll only share it if I think it's actually going to be helpful. It's a bit like in the reflecting team, you know, if you share an experience that you've had um as an offering, as a gift to the clients. To me, there wasn't any harm in that, but it was quite interesting that she had that view that that was really a no-no. But I was I really appreciated her coming back and talking to me about it.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yeah, and isn't that the essential part of like you were saying earlier, entering the system is we have to think about our relationship with our clients and with the families we work with as an integral part of the work because we are entering their system and entering their interactions.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

That's right, that's right, Laura.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah, and thank you so much for this conversation. I have learned a lot. I've got my post-it note ready to stick on my wall as well. Um, but I just want to say thank you for joining us for this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Oh, look, thank you. It was it was very interesting. I really enjoyed it because we don't often get opportunities to stop and reflect. I should say I don't get many opportunities and reflect about my practice. So this this was helpful in that way for me to really think it through. So thank you for inviting me and um doing this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Oh, thanks, Ann. Um, and I'm really excited we got to talk about family therapy in Australia as well, and that hopefully lots of people um will get to hear the conversation and get excited and and submit all those abstracts for the IFTA conference.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

That's right. Absolutely. Okay. All right, thanks, Leon. Thank you. Thanks, Anne.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

So welcome back, everyone. Um, Laura and I would love to share some of our reflections with you. Um and Laura, is it okay if I start today um just kind of thinking about intentionality?

SPEAKER_00 53:42

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Yeah. Yep. So the one of the things that really struck me about the conversation with Anne was intentional practice and being thoughtful and the metaphor she had of how she weaves in the head, the heart, the gut, and the hands. Um, and I also loved, though, the kind of gentle permission to to practice and not have to be perfect and to, you know, incorporate some creativity and um just resting all on that bed of belief in in systemic practice as an approach.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

I love that too, and that idea of the therapeutic relationship and thinking relationally uh in our practice. I also really love the aft piece, the um thinking about the Family Therapy Association, and I could hear the energy that Anne has around the next steps of the association, which I'm excited about. And this opportunity with IFTA coming up next year in 2027 in Adelaide, and thinking about how as a community we can come together and like I said in the um podcast, enjoy a cozy corner moment where like-minded people come together and think systemically and hear about each other's practice. So um yeah, I'm excited for where this community is heading in Australia, and I'd really encourage everyone to jump on board the aft train and um even come to the little info nights that they have and the PD presentations, just so yeah, we can continue growing this framework of thinking.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Because all those little bits of energy um can keep adding up and and adding up until we, you know, kind of get that beautiful, ongoing, you know, great energy in the family therapy community.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Yeah, for sure. Well, thanks to Anne Hay. What a great conversation. Yeah, that was really great. And should I try our catchy jingle again, although I can't quite remember the exact words. I think it was something along the lines of um let's keep hearing the systemic stories.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Or was it um I feel like there was the word flowing was in there. Was it let's let's keep the systemic stories flowing?

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Uh perhaps. Let's run with that.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

Let's let's run with both and maybe we'll get some feedback on which one um our listeners prefer.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Thanks, Liane. Thanks, Laura White.