Keynote Speakers | AFT Symposiums

Bristol 2020: Keynote Speakers

Dr Reenee Singh is the Chief Executive of the Association of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice in the UK. She is the Founding Director of the London Intercultural Couples Centre at the Child and Family Practice, where she works as a Consultant Family and Systemic Psychotherapist and Director. She is a Visiting Professor at the University of Bergamo, co-director of the Tavistock Family Therapy and Systemic Research Centre and was the past editor of the Journal of Family Therapy. Reenee has published two books and numerous articles in the areas of ‘race’, culture and qualitative research. She presents her research both nationally and internationally. She is an associate editor of the four volume Handbook of Family and Systemic Psychotherapy and co-editor of the fourth volume on Systemic Family Therapy and Global Health, which will be published by Wiley in January 2020. Her next forthcoming book is the Intercultural Exeter Model, written with Janet Reibstein and to be published by Wiley in 2020.

Dr Reenee Singh

Janet Reibstein is Professor Emerita in the School of Psychology at the University of Exeter, where she directed the postgraduate programme in family and couple therapy, for MSc and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology students. She ran a research and clinical training clinic in a model of therapy (The Exeter Model), with Hannah Sherbersky, designed to accord with NICE Guidelines for behavioural therapy with couples when there is a diagnosis of depression. She was Advisor to the Expert Reference Group convened to delineate best practice in this area, and was on the Expert Reference Group on systemic therapy and Clinical Consultant to the research and training organization, One plus One: The Information, Training and Support Research Trust on Relationships; the author of the UK Parenting Plan (distributed to all divorcing couples with children by the courts); the “Listening to Children” booklet also given to separated/divorcing parents; the Separated Parents Information Programme (for couples with children, ordered by the courts); and co-author of two separation/divorce programmes on-line for helping couples manage post-separation issues with children. She is on the national Clinical Advisory Group at Relate and the advisory Steering Committee to the national Employers Initiative Against Domestic Abuse (EIDA) and for twelve years on the Academic Advisory Board to The Mind Gym, a business consultancy that bases their interventions on well-evidenced psychological research with the brief to advise on relationships She is the author of a number of books and numerous publications, both in the academic and in the popular media and has broadcast two Radio 4 series on couples, as well as a 5- part Channel 4 series based on her work, called Love Life. Her book, with Dr Reenee Singh, on the Intercultural Exeter Model is due for publication by John Wiley and Sons in 2020. She is on the Faculty of the Children and Family Practice, and the London Intercultural Couples Centre, where she has a private practice.

Prof Janet Reibstein

Keynote Abstract

Constructing Connections across Cultures, Creating Connections within Couples: The Intercultural Exeter Model

The original Exeter Model was initially constructed upon validated interventions. It also developed a particular way to integrate the use of validated CBT practices with validated systemic ones, to create a new systemic paradigm. But it did not take into account the importance of focusing on the cultural input into peoples’– specifically couples’– lives. In particular, this is key in areas in which there is high intercultural marriage and cohabitation. However, it should affect the thinking of anyone, putting the influence of culture front and centre. We maintain that it is best practice for systemic work to ensure the use of and focus on cultural issues.

The Intercultural Exeter Model has been developed in response, adding in specific systemic practices that bring culture explicitly into the therapy, and focusing systemically informed questions into the Exeter Model interventions to target cultural issues.

The morning will examine specific interventions that both illuminate the model’s innovative systemic ideas and cultural focus. It will demonstrate the use of the specific circularities and culturally- focused interventions that set the Intercultural Exeter Model apart from other systemic modalities. This will be done through DVD material showing the model in action and through small group exercises to experiment with the interventions.