Network therapy

Domain V · Systemic, relational, group & community · Ross Speck, Carolyn Attneave, Uri Rueveni · 1965 · Philadelphia, USA

What it is

Network therapy (also "network intervention" or "network assembly") is a precursor of systemic and community practice, developed in Philadelphia from the mid-1960s by psychiatrist Ross Speck, first with families of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, later with Carolyn Attneave (a psychologist of…

Format

• Format (by version).
• Phases. Speck's six phases describe the process within a meeting and, more loosely, across the series (the Swedish team call this the "network spiral"). The team reads which phase the group is in and responds accordingly:

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Mobilization. Goal: the network proposes and starts organising solutions; complaints are turned into goals; activists (often outsiders to the core family) emerge; small task groups form. Expect proposals that are "more of the same medicine".
• Use today. The original large Philadelphia assemblies are mainly historical. The approach survives in adapted form: smaller "partial" network assemblies (Netherlands, UK), Scandinavian network meetings in child and adult psychiatry, and the network practice of the Mount Tom Institute (Holyoke, Massachusetts). Its ideas feed into later network-based approaches; the clinician here is an adapter, not a certified…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• One activist taking over or burning out.
• Groups without a named convenor or next date.
• Distress in the identified client; have a named team member with them.
• Re-enactment of abuse or violence in front of a large audience: avoid.
• The meeting turning into a lecture; the network handing everything back to the experts.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.