Porodična terapija fokusirana na tugovanje - terapija izbora u oblasti palijativnog zbrinjavanja
Family focused grief therapy: The therapy of choice in palliative care

Summary/Abstract: Palliative care refers to offering physical, psychosocial and spiritual care to patients who are suffering from life threatening diseases. It also includes providing psychological support for family members and other close relations during the period of illness (anticipatory grief) and in the period of bereavement and mourning after the patient's death. The choice of therapy during the process of bereavement and mourning is Family Focused Grief Therapy (FFGT). FFGT is a brief, focused and time-limited psychotherapeutic model of intervention belonging to family psychotherapy which is specified for the families that face a life threatening disease of a family member. FFGT, with some modifications, can be applied in work with the families who are facing a terminal illness of younger family members - a child or an adolescent. FFGT typically comprises of 7 to 9 sessions lasting for 90 minutes, which are arranged flexibly across 9 to 18 months, depending on the needs of each family individually. It is important to emphasize that the frequency and number of sessions in each phase depend on the specific features and needs of each particular family. The intervention aim of FFGT is to prevent the complications of bereavement by enhancing the functioning of the family, through exploration of its cohesion, communications (of thoughts and feelings), and handling of conflict. The story of illness and the related grief is shared in the process. The creator of this model is Dr David Kissane, a psychiatrist and a family psychotherapist from Melbourne, Australia, who also worked at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. The main aims of this article are, on the one hand, to introduce this very useful model of the family therapy to the professional community in Serbia and, on the other, to introduce a conceptual and practical frame of palliative care.

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