The Systemic Way

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• Families at the Heart of Education: The Pears Family School How systemic practice in specialist provision creates lasting change: With Laura Lower and Maya Bell Kohli 07.06.2026 1Std. 18Min.

  In this episode, we shine a spotlight on the Pears Family School, a pioneering Alternative Provision school in the UK that is redefining how we support children with complex emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs. Facing a national crisis in child mental health and a lack of joined-up services, the Pears Family School bridges the gap between education and mental health through a unique, systemic, and family-focused approach. We are joined by Laura Lower and Maya Bell Kohli as we disco...
• Reflexive Inquiry and Meaning-Making in Organisations: In conversation with Christine Oliver 17.05.2026 1Std. 19Min.

  In this episode, we are joined by pioneering systemic psychotherapist, organisational consultant, and author Christine Oliver for a rich conversation exploring systemic approaches to organisational life, leadership, and change. Drawing from over 30 years of experience across the NHS, charities, international organisations, faith communities, and private consultancy, Christine reflects on how systemic and social constructionist ideas can help organisations navigate complexity, conflict, hierar...
• From Modalities to Relational Meaning: A Systemic Turn in Integrative Counselling - With Rick Murphy and Lisa Dvorjetz. 26.04.2026 1Std. 3Min.

  In this episode of The Systemic Way, we speak with Rick Murphy and Lisa Dvorjetz about their book A Systemic Approach to Integrative Counselling (2024) and the growing need to bring relational thinking into everyday therapeutic practice. Together, we explore how familiar counselling models such as person-centred, psychodynamic, CBT, Gestalt, and action-based approaches can be reworked through systemic ideas of context, relationships, patterns, and meaning. Rather than locating distress s...
• Inside EFTA-RELATES 2025: Challenging Indifference, Creating Connection, Shaping the Future of the Systemic Field 27.03.2026 1Std. 32Min.

  Celebrating our 100th episode of The Systemic Way Podcast. We took The Systemic Way to @EFTA-RELATES 2025 Congress in Lyon and stepped into a space shaped by change, tension, and possibility. Across four days, we spoke with therapists, researchers, and practitioners working at the edges of systemic practice. You hear their reflections, their challenges, and the moments that stayed with them. From conversations on migration, trauma, and social justice, to explorations of family therapy, orga...
• Felt Sense Polyvagal Dialogue in Family Therapy: With Jan Winhall 20.03.2026 1Std. 24Min.

  In this episode of The Systemic Way, we sit down with renowned psychotherapist, author, and educator Jan Winhall to explore the transformative power of the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model (FSPM). With over four decades of clinical experience, Jan invites us into a radically compassionate, body‑based understanding of trauma, addiction, and healing. Together, we unpack how the body’s survival responses are not signs of pathology but intelligent adaptations—messages that deserve curiosity rather th...
• Adolescence: Toxic Masculinity, Online Radicalisation, and Systemic Responsibility. Systemic Lens ep. 4. 04.02.2026 1Std. 23Min.

  In this episode, we’re turning our attention to the UK drama Adolescence — a series that begins with a single, shocking event but quickly reveals a much wider web of responsibility. Rather than focusing solely on the actions of one young person, the drama draws us into the interconnected systems surrounding him: family, school, peer culture, mental health services, and the criminal justice system. Using a systemic psychotherapy lens, we’ll explore how meaning, behaviour, and risk are produced...
• Once Upon A Time In Grandmotherland: Myths, Meanings and Cultural Discourses with Dr Judith Edwards 16.01.2026 46Min.

  In Grandmotherland, Dr Judith Edwards offers an exploration of Grandmotherhood as an intergenerational, relational, and socially constructed position. Drawing on myth, fairy tales, family narratives, and contemporary lived experience, she examines how dominant cultural discourses shape expectations of grandmothers and organise family roles, boundaries, and power across generations. Judith attends to patterns of transmission, alliance, exclusion, and care, situating Grandmotherhood within wide...
• On Age-in-Therapy: In Conversation with Carole Hunt, Daniel Blake and Polly Kaiser of the DWP Age Group 21.12.2025 1Std. 20Min.

  In this episode of The Systemic Way, we talk about age in the room—listening for it not as decline, but as presence, memory, and becoming. Drawing inspiration from Maya Angelou’s On Aging, where she writes of being “old as the hills, and far from done,” we explore lifecycle transitions, working with older people, and how a therapist’s age is read, misread, and positioned in the therapeutic relationship. We reflect on age as a cultural and systemic story: how wisdom, power, invisibility, autho...
• Why Dialogue Cures: In Conversation with Dr Jaako Seikkula 30.11.2025 1Std. 19Min.

  In this episode we speak with no other than Dr. Jaako Seikkula on this latest bookWhy Dialogue Does Cure: Explaining What Makes Dialogue Unprecedentedly Effective in Difficult Crises (2025). The book presents the core principles of Open Dialogue, a system of psychiatric care and dialogic psychotherapy that has spread to over 40 countries. Why Dialogue Does Cure explores the transformative power of Open Dialogue, a radically humanistic approach to mental health care developed in Western Laplan...
• White Nanny, Black Child: Systems of Care, Silence and Survival - in conversation with Micheal Henry 26.10.2025 1Std. 29Min.

  In this episode, we reflect on the deeply moving documentary White Nanny, Black Child (2023), which explores Britain’s “farming” system — a practice through which over 70,000 West African children were fostered by white British families between 1955 and 1995. Through the voices of nine adults who reunite to share their experiences, the film opens up tender and painful reflections on identity, belonging, and survival. We listen to the echoes of care and silence that continue to shape lives lo...
• Still We Listen - Where Whispers Move: Systemic Reverberations of Tracy Chapman's Music with DWP Race Group 12.10.2025 1Std. 49Min.

  In this very special episode we sit down with members of the DWP - Race Group (Shakira Nkanang, Calvin Malcom and John Burnham) as we turn our systemic lens on the iconic album by Tracy Chapman (Tracy Chapman 1988). We ask, how does Tracy Chapman's album provide a soundtrack for confronting race, power, and privilege in therapeutic practice? What do the anthems of our lives reveal about the systems we live in? We unpack how "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" isn't just a protest song, b...
• An Ocean of Meaning in Speech Melody: Accent, identity and Power in Therapy with Jordan Makmihe 31.08.2025 1Std. 18Min.

  In systemic psychotherapy we often focus on the words we use, but what about the sound of them? In this episode, we meet with systemic psychotherapist and social worker Jordan Makmihe to explore the subtle yet significant role of accent in therapeutic practice. Our conversation considers how the nuances of our speech—the melody, the rhythm, the inflection—carry unspoken stories about identity, belonging, and power. We discuss how these vocal cues quietly influence the relationship between th...
• Reading as Reflexive and Mindful Practice: A Conversation with Desa Markovic 02.08.2025 1Std. 3Min.

  In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with therapist, trainer, supervisor and author Desa Markovic to explore her compelling paper on the Aspects of Reading (2021) - a model that invites practitioners, students, and educators into a deeper, more layered relationship with texts. Desa guides us through a nuanced framework that separates and then interweaves four key reading positions: The Author’s View, The Reader’s Personal Response, Critique, and Self-Reflexivity. Together, we u...
• The Love Revolution: Soul, Soil & Society with Satish Kumar 06.07.2025 59Min.

  In this inspiring and thought-provoking episode, we sit down with peace activist, former Jain monk, and ecological visionary Satish Kumar to explore the profound power of Radical Love—the focus of his latest book. Together, we dive into how love can be understood not just as a personal feeling, but as a systemic force capable of transforming families, communities, and entire societies. Satish shares his reflections on how love can shape education, economics, politics, healthcare, and environm...
• "In the Nest of Relational Process" - Nora Bateson on Warm Data, Ecology of Connection, and The Systems That Shape Us 01.06.2025 1Std. 28Min.

  What if our biggest crises – from climate collapse to mental health – demand not simpler solutions, but a deeper embrace of complexity? Join us for a profound conversation with Nora Bateson, award-winning filmmaker, writer, and systems thinker. Nora takes us inside the rich ecology of ideas explored in her groundbreaking book, Combining. Nora challenges us to see the world as a web of inseparable relationships, where every action ripples with incalculable consequences. She argues compell...
• EFTA - Systemic Therapy in A Changing World: Social justice, Research and Relational Ethics. In conversation with Umberta Telfener, President of EFTA, and Hans Christian Michaelsen, Vice President of EFTA 16.05.2025 1Std. 4Min.

  In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, we sit down with Umberta Telfener, President of EFTA, and Hans Christian Michaelsen, Vice President, to explore the heart of systemic practice across Europe. Together, they unpack what EFTA (European Family Therapy Association) is, how it’s structured, and what it offers to both long-standing members and curious newcomers. We hear about their personal journeys into systemic therapy, the organization’s current goals, and the evolving landscape of fam...
• Liberating Systemic Values: How IFT’s Social Action is Redefining Training, Research, and Organisational Futures: In Conversation with Taiwo Afuape and Sumita Dutta 16.04.2025 1Std. 35Min.

  In this episode, we speak with Taiwo Afuape and Sumita Dutta, Co-Directors of the Institute of Family Therapy in London, to explore the rich history and bold new direction of one of the UK’s leading centres for systemic practice. Together, we reflect on IFT’s legacy, its role in shaping generations of family therapists, and how its current leadership is reimagining training and practice through a lens of social justice, inclusivity, and innovation. This is a conversation about change, c...
• The Wisdom of "Not Knowing" - Collaborative Dialogical Practice and Embracing Curiosity With Dr Harlene Anderson 06.04.2025 1Std. 33Min.

  Join us for an inspiring and thought-provoking interview with Dr. Harlene Anderson, a trailblazer in systemic psychotherapy and co-founder of the Collaborative-Dialogical Approach. In this deep dive, we explore her revolutionary ideas—from challenging traditional therapy hierarchies to redefining power, knowledge, and the role of language in healing. We’ll unpack: - The origins of her work—What drew her to the Mental Research Institute (MRI) and constructivist ideas? Who were h...
• Sailing the 7 C's of Systemic Practice in Primary Healthcare Settings: In conversation with Dr John Launer 18.02.2025 54Min.

  Join us in this insightful episode as we sit down with Dr. John Launer, a retired GP, family therapist, and pioneer in integrating systemic and narrative approaches into healthcare. Dr. Launer shares his journey from general practice to becoming a leading figure in training healthcare professionals to use therapeutic conversations in their everyday work. Discover the transformative power of Conversations Inviting Change (CIC), a method Dr. Launer co-developed to help clinicians balance the no...
• "Thinking Theory, Talking Ordinary": John Burnham on his Approaches, Methods and Techniques to Therapy, Supervision and Training. 03.02.2025 1Std. 54Min.

  Join us for an inspiring and personal conversation with John Burnham, a true trailblazer in systemic psychotherapy and a visionary in the field of family therapy. With a career spanning over five decades, John has dedicated his life to transforming the way we understand and approach mental health, particularly in the context of eating disorders and family dynamics. In this insightful podcast episode, John Burnham, reflects on his decades-long career, sharing personal and professional experien...