A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Systemic Understanding for Healing and Health

 

Shelley Hanson

For the past four years, I have been serving on the AAMFT Board of Directors in my presidency tenure (two years as president-elect, two years as president; in 2023 I will shift to past-president). I have watched in awe as the world changed in some radical ways, and alongside my fellow board members, have worked diligently to help ensure the advancement of marriage and family therapy through the health of our Association and its future. As most of us have experienced across the world, the events have brought significant personal, philosophical, spiritual, relational, and physical challenges.

I have been reflecting on these elements and how they align—or do not align—with our systemic worldview, and most specifically with my own. So, I will start here: For me, there is an intersectionality of the integration of congruency-with-self and autonomy-of-other. As one continues to grow and become, understanding one’s internal landscape—what matters, what signals are communicating—and honoring this, it lends toward respecting one’s own autonomy which can lend to witnessing and respecting the autonomy of other. In the sacred story, this may be “loving your neighbor as you love yourself.”

AAMFT’s Ethical Code states,

1.1. Marriage and family therapists provide professional assistance to persons without discrimination on the basis of race, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, gender, health status, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation.

And, 1.8 Marriage and family therapists respect the rights of clients to make decisions and help them to understand the consequences of these decisions. Therapists clearly advise the clients that they have the responsibility to make decisions regarding relationships such as cohabitation, marriage, divorce, separation, reconciliation, custody, and visitation.

In 2018, AAMFT published an Inclusivity Statement. This statement was enlarged and posted on a reader-board upon entering the Annual Conference Exhibit Hall. It notified all attendees—vendors and participants alike—of the expectation for respect and dignity extended to every person. I recall vividly seeing that placard, pausing to read it, pleased that AAMFT was taking this public stand for diversity and inclusion. This statement sat congruously within me and aligned to my personal meaning-making. Since that time, the AAMFT Board of Directors has brought in consultants, received trainings, and commissioned multiple task forces to further integrate diversity, equity and inclusivity throughout our governance and will continue to grow and integrate in the days ahead.

Across the world, the events of the last several years have punctuated that there are so many forms of diversity to consider. As fellow sojourners, we may be asking ourselves complex questions about autonomy, the personal right/s to make decisions, and who has a right to disrupt or alter them. Must everyone think the same? Must everyone feel the same about an issue? What happens when worldviews are substantially different? Can we possibly learn from one another? What is our tolerance for this? Even concepts of right and wrong are now under siege.

What does this mean for us as MFTs? Since we too are part of the impacted, how do we hold respectful, honoring space for those impacted in contrasting ways? To some extent, we could consider this has always been our challenge. Due to our ethics, it is not for us to decide for others, but for us to aid others in finding their own decisions. Yet, how do we manage our own internal landscape as MFTs when others’ decisions then impact us, the clinician, the faculty member, the student? In essence, the truth of systems is front and center in our own professional and personal lives, as well as on the world stage.

This FTM issue is covering the topic of bullying, which for me, connotes a collision of autonomy. The word “bullying” itself brings some resonant memories and emotions for me. I recall when I was very young, asking my father why he encouraged us, his children, to “always stand up for someone who is being bullied.” My father’s voice can still be heard within me as he spoke in his succinct manner, “Because we can.” Non-violent communication helps us see a myriad of ways we can engage to aid against a bully without violence and change the course—sometimes—for other or self. It seems to me now that my father was quite systemic when he encouraged our engagement for others.

There are approximately 73,200 MFTs throughout the world—and countless systemic thinkers—who recognize every person’s interconnectedness and thus the potential change that can be accomplished through honoring autonomy of self and other. What each of us say and do matters and influences our environment of place, people, and worldview. It is my belief and hope that in the days ahead, our systemic understanding of the respect of autonomy and the dignity of other will lend toward healing and health throughout our spheres of influence that betters the world.

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