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Learning and Teaching Systemic Therapy

Learning and Teaching Systemic Therapy

By: Society for the Teaching of Marriage and Family Therapy
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Welcome to the Society for the Teaching of Marriage and Family Therapy (STMFT) podcast hosted by Dr. Sofia Georgiadou. Dr. Sofia facilitates dialogues between seasoned Marriage and Family Therapy educators and PhD students. The experienced MFT Educator(s) respond to questions PhD students in CFT/MFT have about becoming effective CFT/MFT educators.

Our podcast is open to systemically trained educators of all ranks in the United States, Australia, Canada, Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

The podcast’s goal is to create informal, publicly available, mentorship opportunities and enhance PhD students’ knowledge of pedagogy, culturally responsive learning design, as well as effective teaching of CFT/MFT courses.


The Society for the Teaching of Marriage and Family Therapy was established in 2022.
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Episodes
  • Ep 18: Eco-systemic Therapy - Including Place and Nature in our Training and Practice

    Ep 18: Eco-systemic Therapy - Including Place and Nature in our Training and Practice
    Jul 1 2026

    Today, I welcome Catherine Falco to discuss eco-relational and ecologically systemic practice, with particular attention to how educators and supervisors can prepare therapists to think beyond the individual and toward wider relational, environmental, and cultural systems.

    Catherine Falco:

    Cath is a psychologist and clinical family therapist. She has a Masters in Mental Health specialising in Family therapy and she is currently completing a research PhD at The University of Sydney where she is investigating ecological emotions and systems thinking with a focus on grassroots groups and community-based practices. She lives in northern New South Wales on Bundjalung Country where she and her family tend 12 acres of Eucalypt Forest nestled in the biodiverse bowl of the Tweed Caldera.

    Reach out to Cath here: catherine.l.falco@gmail.com

    Resources discussed:

    Falco, C. (2022), Integrative Practice for the Beginning Family Therapist: Bringing it Back to Basics. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 43, 70-79. https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1484

    Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions. Purchase here (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/4beRhEr

    Kimmerer, R. W. (2024). The serviceberry: Abundance and reciprocity in the natural world. Scribner. Purchase here (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/447xh2M

    McGoldrick, M., Garcia Preto, N., & Carter, B. A. (2016). The expanding family life cycle: Individual, family, and social perspectives (5th ed.). Pearson. Purchase here (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/4wi2uMF

    Palmer, H., & Fortina Santin, C. (Eds.). (2025, December). Ecotherapy, environment, dystopian futures. Context, 202. Association for Family and Systemic Psychotherapy.

    Questions we discussed in today's episode:

    1. When introducing eco-relational practice to systemic therapists in training, what shifts do you think us educators need to make so students can move beyond an anthropocentric view of therapy and truly think systemically about humans in relationship with the living world?
    2. How can we teach therapists to recognize and respond to ecological emotions, such as climate grief, ecological anxiety, and disaster-related distress, without treating them only as individual symptoms disconnected from broader relational and environmental systems?
    3. For those teaching systemic therapy, what does it look like in practice to bring ecologically systemic ideas into supervision and classroom conversations, even when the training is not specifically focused on outdoor or nature-based therapy?
    4. You mentioned the importance of Indigenous and First Peoples worldviews when discussing relationship with Place. How can educators responsibly bring these perspectives into therapist training in ways that are respectful and not tokenistic?
    5. What invitations would you offer to supervisors and educators who want to help trainees develop a climate-informed perspective, especially in relation to their own senses, their relationship with place, and their awareness of larger systems such as colonization, patriarchy, and ecological disruption?
    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
  • Ep 17: On the Handbook of Online Systemic Therapy, Supervision, and Training

    Ep 17: On the Handbook of Online Systemic Therapy, Supervision, and Training
    Jul 1 2026
    Purchase the online handbook of online systemic therapy, supervision and training here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-92225-1 Today’s conversation focuses on the Handbook of Online Systemic Therapy, Supervision, and Training: Practice and Research, and on the evolving possibilities and challenges of systemic work in digital spaces. I’m delighted to be in conversation with the editors, Valeria Pomini and Maria Borcsa, whose volume brings together contemporary thinking on online systemic therapy, supervision, and training across a range of clinical and educational contexts. Maria Borcsa, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Applied Sciences in Nordhausen (UASN), Germany, licensed psychological psychotherapist (CBT), family therapist, trainer and supervisor. She is founding member of the Institute of Social Medicine, Health Care Research and Rehabilitation Sciences at UASN, co-editor of the scientific journals “Systeme” (2001-2014), “Psychotherapie im Dialog” (2007-2019), member of the Editorial Board of the journals "Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology", “Contemporary Family Therapy”, advisory editor of “Family Process”, associate editor of “Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy”, and founding editor of the EFTA Family Therapy Book Series. She has been board member of the Systemic Society (Systemische Gesellschaft), German Association for Systemic Research, Therapy, Supervision and Counseling (2005-2011); board member of the European Family Therapy Association (EFTA) (2007-2016), Chair of the Chamber of National Family Therapy Organizations of EFTA (2010-2013), and President of EFTA (2013-2016). Her research interests focus on qualitative methods in mental health and on globalized families. In 2019, she received an award from the European Family Therapy Association for her excellence in the research field of family therapy and systemic practice. Email Maria here: Maria.Borcsa@hs-nordhausen.de Valeria Pomini, PhD Valeria Pomini, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist, trained in systemic family and couple psychotherapy at the Milan School of Family Therapy in the 80s. She lives and works in Greece, where she co-founded the Family Therapy Unit (1988) and of which was Scientific Coordinator (2009-2023) at the First Department of Psychiatry, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is also the co-founder and co-director of the 4-year Training Course in Systemic Family and Couple Therapy (member of EFTA-TIC), established in 1992 at the University Mental Health, Neurosciences and Medical Precision Research Institute “Costas Stefanis” (UMHRI) in Athens. She has a wide experience as supervisor in public mental health institutions, since the last thirty years. Her research and clinical interests focus on the intersectionality of mental health problems and family relationships, with a special interest in early psychosis, substance abuse and other severe youth psychological disorders, couple therapy, and digital practices in mental health. She is member of the editorial committee of the journals Systemic Therapy & Psychotherapy and Journal of Psychosocial Systems. She is founder member, board member and past-president (2004-2010) of the Hellenic Systemic Thinking and Family Therapy Association – HESTAFTA and co-chair of the Psychotherapy Committee of the Hellenic Psychological Association ELPSE. Email Valeria here: vpomini@med.uoa.gr Questions we discussed in this episode: Your work on this book started before COVID. What were the biggest shifts you observed in systemic practice from the pre-COVID period to the post-COVID period, and what did the research outcomes suggest about those shifts? Overview of the book chapters/ contents/etcThe book is positioned for family therapists across Europe and beyond. What patterns did you notice in how MFTs use systemic therapy across different European contexts, and what do you most want readers outside Europe to understand about those differences? (e.g., Geographical differences)You’ve noted changes in therapeutic relationships with teletherapy. In your view, what has fundamentally changed in the therapeutic relationship in systemic telehealth (e.g., alliance, engagement, power, privacy, family dynamics), and what has remained surprisingly stable?You structured the book to address multiple levels: therapy, supervision, and training. What are the main topics in these three levels?The book contents appear to move from theoretical concepts to competencies and then clinical practice. Several chapters get very concrete about what happens “in the room” online (e.g., therapeutic alliance, “joining” in the virtual office, “the virtual third,” and specific tools such as online games, metaphoric tools, and working with images). How would the book be useful for a post-graduate training program?
    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • Ep 16: Queer-contextualized Family Therapy - A conversation with the editors

    Ep 16: Queer-contextualized Family Therapy - A conversation with the editors
    Apr 2 2026
    In today’s episode, we discuss the book Queer-Contextualized Family Therapy: Toward Radically Inclusive Theory and Practice, and I’m joined by the book’s editors, Dr. Erica Hartwell and Dr. Lindsay Edwards. Dr. Erica Hartwell is an Associate Professor of Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy in the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling. Her teaching, supervision, and scholarship is focused on creating community, compassion, and justice, with a focus on queer and trans mental health and well-being. In 2023, she received Fairfield University’s highest faculty honor, the Robert E. Wall award, in recognition of her forthcoming book, Queer-Contextualized Family Therapy: Toward Radical Theory and Practice. She served as the first chair of AAMFT’s Queer and Trans Advocacy Network and led the development of the Clinical Guidelines for LGBTQIA Affirming Marriage and Family Therapy. As an AAMFT Board Member, she worked on the Gender-Affirming Care Position Statement. Dr. Edwards is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and an AAMFT Approved Supervisor. She dedicated 11 years to academia, serving as faculty within several accredited couple and family therapy programs. During this time, she conducted research, published articles, and provided didactic instruction and clinical supervision to MFTs in training. Currently, Dr. Edwards serves as a manager for Colorado's Behavioral Health Administration, overseeing the Children and Youth Mental Health Treatment Act and other critical mental health initiatives. Beyond her administrative role, she specializes in LGBTQ+ inclusive family therapy and remains deeply committed to the field by providing private practice supervision and supervision mentorship. Dr. Lindsay Edwards can be contacted through her website: https://www.drlindsayedwards.com/ Questions we discussed in this episode: You frame queer-contextualizing as a beginning framework, not “the answer,” but a question for the field. Share with us what this framework looks like.What are some questions you want clinicians, supervisors, and educators to keep asking as they apply this framework to any model (including models that may not be covered in the book)?A key thread you wanted to highlight in this text is that it is not only about queerness, but about reenvisioning how our foundational models could be reimagined to tend to any marginalized identity/positioning.When a clinician is working in a country or cultural context with a different dominant discourse, what are some “dominant assumptions” you recommend they identify and unpack?The table of contents applies queer-contextualizing to multiple foundational approaches (Structural, Strategic, Satir, EFT, Bowen, Contextual, Gottman, SFBT, Collaborative). Please share with us an example of how a queer-contextualizing framework changes case conceptualization and intervention planning from a Bowenian approach?Please share with us an example of how a queer-contextualizing framework changes case conceptualization and intervention planning from a Satir approach? Your editorial process itself sounds aligned with the book’s values: It started with an open call, intensive 1:1 work with authors, and inviting contributors to “say the wild thing” outside typical academic constraints. What did you learn from editing this way, and how do you hope it influences how we write, teach, and evaluate scholarship in our training programs? Purchase the book here: https://www.routledge.com/Queer-Contextualized-Family-Therapy-Toward-Radically-Inclusive-Theory-and-Practice/Hartwell-Edwards/p/book/9781032311265
    Show More Show Less
    43 mins
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