Meet Catherine Falco

Are you curious about the Phoenix teaching team? Then welcome to the fourth of the Teaching Team Introduction series of blogs to introduce Leonie and the Phoenix Family Therapy Teaching Team Associates and Guest Teaching Associates.

Relationships are at the heart of family therapy and systemic practice and start with introductions.  It’s important that at Phoenix we practice what we teach and embrace the relational principles that we espouse. So let’s keep going with getting to know the team in this blog series.

From Catherine:

How did your interest in family therapy and systemic practice get sparked?

 Working in child and adolescent mental health meant that I was conducting assessments with parents and whole families but working with children and teenagers as clients. Over the years I felt that the best way I could help the children and YP I was seeing was to work with their parents towards creating systemic change within the family.

What frameworks are you drawn to and why? And which figures in family therapy have been your biggest influences?

 I draw on many frameworks and integrate ideas form Strategic, Bowen and Structural schools of family therapy with Narrative, Milan and Solution Focused practices. I am in the middle of a PhD which is exploring systemic thinking and eco-informed perspectives, so these days I am leaning towards a very broad (eco)systemic lens that includes relationships with the living world as well as sociopolitical, gender-aware and antiracist practices.

How has systemic thinking and practice influenced your work? 

My profession-of-origin is psychology, a discipline that focuses on the individual, so my practice now has a significantly wider lens since developing the skill of systemic thinking. I love that a systemic lens facilitates inclusive, non-pathologising and sophisticated conceptualisations that helps me understand my clients in a more holistic way.

 Why have you chosen to go into a teaching/supervising/mentoring role in this field? 

And do a PhD in it! … Many aspects of our current society, with its rapid change, are pointing to the need to think in terms of systems. Developing skills in systemic thinking is necessary for the systemic change that our society (and environment) is now demanding.

If you could give one piece of advice to our program participants starting the 2-year accredited training program, the Advanced Certificate in Systemic Family Therapy and Practice, what would it be? 

I’m breaking the rules and offering these three pieces of advice: 1) Get to know Gregory Bateson who was excellent at bringing the living world into his systemic theorizing. 2) Recognise the beauty in seeing an individual (and yourself) through a wider lens. 3) Lean into the principle of the both/and professionally and personally—it’s a game-changer.

What is something you love to do when you aren’t working? 

I love walking and do so most days. I’m also a hiker and am enlivened by the feeling of being outside for long stretches of time (7 days is my maximum so far) carrying everything I need—food, shelter, clothing—on my own back.

Catherine Falco

Clinical Family Therapist & Psychologist

Teaching Team Member Phoenix Family Therapy Academy

Please note that this article is educational in nature and does not constitute professional or therapeutic advice or suggestion.