Systemic family therapy for severe functional disorders in youths. A qualitative study in a psychiatric setting

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Hulgaard, D.R., Risør, M.B., Lambertsen, G.D. and Rask, C.U. (2021). Systemic family therapy for severe functional disorders in youths: a qualitative study in a psychiatric setting. Journal of Family Therapy, 43, 558-575, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6427.12319. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.This study aimed to explore participant experiences of systemic family therapy for youths with functional disorders. After completing family therapy, eight youths and thirteen parents participated in qualitative interviews. The analysis was based on interpretative phenomenological analysis and identified two main themes. The first theme was: ‘Challenges of creating meaning and understanding of child symptoms in family therapy’, with symptom understanding and explanation found to be important, though sometimes challenging, themes in therapy. The second theme was: ‘Clinical encounters in family therapy promote dialogue’, which included the finding that the family therapy setting with joint sessions for family members facilitated in-family communicatio