Professor Peter Rober is a Belgian clinical psychologist, family therapist, family therapy trainer and author who has worked widely in various aspects of his specialisation. Soon after arriving in Malta to present a seminar for professionals, he accepted to be interviewed exclusively for this newspaper, sharing some insight into his work, therapy with families and how his profession has experienced the shift of families over time.

Professor Rober teaches family therapy at the Institute for Family & Sexuality Studies in the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (also known as KU Leuven University). Leuven is barely 25 km away from Brussels Airport, which was unfortunately a key protagonist in recent terrorist attacks. He explains how the event of 22 March impacted on his clinic.

"In the days immediately following the attacks, it was terrible. Everybody was scared. The families who came to therapy all had stories connected with the attacks.  One boy for instance, was a seven- year-old whose mother is a flight attendant.  That morning he was in school, and during morning break he heard the teachers speak of the attack on the airport.  Since he knew his mother was flying to Paris that morning, he panicked.  The teachers understood what happened and started to phone for information about his mother. After about half an hour they found she was safe in Paris.  Her plane took off at 7:50am, the bombs went off at 7:58am. Although he was relieved his mother was safe, the boy was very scared.  He wanted to see his mother as soon as possible, but she could not return to Brussels because all airports were closed.  It was only three days later that he saw her again.  And you know what?  This boy came for therapy because for months he had these nightmares in which he saw the plane his mother was on, exploding because of a bomb.  Strange isn't it?"

Prof. Rober's research on families is pretty intensive and has been ongoing for many years.

He is a Senior Faculty member at the Institute for Dialogic Practice, a state-of-the-art training facility in Massachusetts, the only North American teaching facility specialising in providing world-class training in Open Dialogue and Dialogic Practice. Appreciated for his continuous contributions of note to the development of dialogical therapy, Prof. Rober has focused his research interest areas on the practice of family therapy and on the therapy process, honing in on the self of the therapist and the therapist's inner conversation.

"I don't know what has prompted my particular area of research.  In some way I have always been interested in what is not said. The therapist's inner conversation is about what is going on in the therapist's mind, while he/she is talking to the clients. I do a lot of research on family secrecy: what is not said in families.  This interests me.  I don't know why.  Maybe it has something to do with my own history, as in my family there was a lot of secrecy around my grandfather who had been in a concentration camp for POW's in Germany.  We all knew that.  But even though I had a lot of questions about his experiences, we did not talk about it.   Only years after he died, did we start to talk about it.  It seems he did not want to talk about it, because he didn't want to burden us."

Professor Rober speaks of similar experiences voiced by members of families of Holocaust victims.  "Before I went to Leuven to teach, I was a therapist in Antwerp where there is a big Jewish community, so I had quite a few Jewish families in my practice.  Once this man came to me because of anxiety attacks.  Let's call him Jakob.  Jakob told me his father had been in Auschwitz, but never said anything  of his experiences in the camp. Jakob was intrigued and wanted to know more, but his father refused to answer his questions.  When his father got cancer and lay on his deathbed,  Jakob asked, "Please Daddy, tell me about the camp.  Tell me about your experiences."  But the father said, "No, I will not tell you, because when I tell you, a door will be opened that will never close again.  I want to protect you from that."  However Jakob insisted and finally his father started to talk about Auschwitz.  During therapy Jakob told me that since then, he suffers from anxiety attacks.  He admitted his father had been right.  He can't get the door closed again.  Jakob also told me that he will never tell his own son about what his father has told him of his experiences in the camp." 

Another aspect of his work is the annual organisation of the European Summer School in Family Therapy in Leuven  together with Jaakko Seikkula, John Shotter, Justine van Lawick and Jim Wilson. Over his many years in this field and through his experience around Europe and the US, he has seen major emerging issues for families across continents. 

Asked about this, he comments, "In terms of what families are all about, what strikes me most are not the cultural differences, but rather the communalities.  Of course there are differences, and these catch our eye immediately.  Then if you look further, you see that all families have something to do with connection and safety.  With nurturing and teaching.  With transference of values and knowledge.  I think it is important that - while acknowledging and respecting cultural differences- these essential aspects of families are now being recognized by the family therapy field. This happens through the attention given to attachment processes and relational attunement processes, in research, in clinical practice as well as in the training of therapists."

Since he started out in family therapy, the teaching of family therapy and the training of therapists has developed considerably - how? "Indeed, over the years I have witnessed two trends.  There is a trend towards protocolized treatments, step-by-step treatment models that can be prescribed for every patient with the same kind of problems.  So you have protocols for depressed adolescents, protocols for couples in conflict, protocols for anorexia nervosa and so on.  Connected with the promotion of these protocols, the training is focused on teaching therapists how to use the protocol step by step.  In fact, some of the developers of the protocols say they don't need therapists for these protocols.  They only need helpers who are trained in the protocols and who adhere to the manual."

"There is also a second trend in the field.  A trend to acknowledge the central importance of the therapeutic alliance in therapy.  Scientific research shows that, whatever the content of the therapy, whatever the theoretical model, whatever the protocol, what is most important is the warm empathic relationship between therapist and client.  The scientific evidence for this approach is overwhelming, and based on this evidence, the training of therapist should be focused... not on teaching step-by-step protocols... but rather on the capacities of therapists to be flexible in the way they connect with their clients, and in their attunement to the unique client with his or her unique suffering. Being a family therapist, forming such a relationship is quite complex as you have to relate with each of the family members.  Also with the children, and this presents the family therapist with an additional challenge."

 

During his short stay on Malta, at the invitation of The Institute of Family Therapy-Malta (IFT-Malta) Professor Rober shall be presenting a seminar on 6th May - 'Discussing the Person of the Therapist with a focus on the complexity of listening & Internal Dialogue in therapy practice'.    For more information refer to www.ift-malta.com