International Academy of Family Psychology

Just returned from a great professional experience at the IAFP conference. This is an organization that several of my academic mentors from graduate school have been involved in, and which I had my first chance to get some contact with. IAFP meets every 4 years (now 3 years) and has conferences around the globe that focus on "family psychology". This differentiates from family systems and family therapy in that "family psychology" has an empirical and scientific research emphasis and includes both basic science research on families as well as applied/intervention research.

The conference was a great experience, made all the better by having two of my students attend and volunteer to help set up presentations and symposia. They represented themselves very well and I hope enjoyed their experience. I was able to actually get involved in the organization and will be serving as treasurer for the next three years and as a de facto marketing/membership/web presence person. The latter is difficult in that I cannot write code at all, but I will find a good contract person to help I guess.

The highlight of the conference for me was a presentation by Dr. Greg Jurkovic of Georgia State U. psychology dept. on his method for assessing trauma in juvenile offenders through a card sort exercise. Brilliant stuff, and he and his colleagues have found that this is both an assessment method and an intervention given the impact it appears to have upon the teens desire to talk more about past traumatic experiences. The method has within it principles of assessment and intervention with juvenile offenders that I hold dear - methods need to be concrete and interactive, and methods need to involve the youth as a collaborator. I hope to get a chance to apply this method in our project in Mobile in the near future and see what we find. In particular trauma either conceived as formal PTSD or an emerging concept of "complex trauma" has been under researched relative to studying the etiology of juvenile offending, and particularly so in regards to male juvenile offenders. Research shows that boys who are engaging in criminal and violent acts have levels of exposure to vicarious violence and traumatic experiences (when one's life is threatened) at rates much higher than the average person; but we have historically seen trauma as primarily relevant in the case of female juvenile offenders. I think Dr. Jukovic's method opens the door to assessing and intervening with trauma processes in ways that are particularly good for young men.

Beyond that I also got to hear a bit about how issues like school refusal/dropout are being addressed in Japan and a great deal about the role of families in the development and intervention of addictions. Got to meet Dr. Al Mooney whose father started the Willingway addictions hospital in Statesboro Georgia and who has co-written a popular book in addictions recovery. He discussed his work as medical director of a homeless shelter in Raleigh, N.C. and some thoughts on the pharmaceutical industry's role in mental health and addictions (their negative role I should say). He was a dynamic speaker and I really resonated with his passion for the psychosocial aspects of treating mental and behavioral problems.

So all in all a new door opening for me professionally, and a reason to present my team's work in Tokyo in 2013, which is where the next IAFP conference will be held!