Our first issue of 2024 is Part Two of our special issue focused on family therapy in Turkey. Turkey is the first of several IJST special issues that will focus on specific countries and regions of the world. The choice of Turkey as our first country wasn’t random: Turkey has a long, rich history in family therapy. In 2013, Eda Arduman told her story of family therapy in Turkey, including the development and history of family therapy and the political and historical challenges throughout that history (Arduman, Citation2013). When Yudum Soylemez and Senem Zeytinoğlu Saydam approached me about featuring Turkey in a special issue, I thought it was the perfect time to highlight some of the outstanding work in Turkey 10 years after Eda Arduman’s article. I also had a strong interest in Turkey.
In 2013, my colleague, Dr. Jo Ellen Patterson, and I took 16 students from our marital and family therapy program at the University of San Diego to Istanbul for an educational exchange with three institutions – Bilgi University, Süleyman Şah Uni-versity, and Doğuş University. The primary goal was to expose our students to family therapy training and practice in a part of the world very different from southern California and to share our work with new colleagues in Istanbul. In addition to learning about contemporary Turkish families, public policies concerning families, divorce in Turkish culture, and the current state of family therapy in Turkey, we had the opportunity to participate in a live supervision with one of the students from Doğuş University. These international exchanges have been some of the best moments of my teaching career.
In 2024, our focus will turn to family therapy in Asia. Dr. John Miller, Director of the Sino-American Family Therapy Institute in Shanghai, China, will be our Guest Co-Editor. The Call for Papers is out now (1 July 2024 submission deadline); please submit your important work to us and encourage your colleagues to do the same.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Reference
- Arduman, E. A. (2013). A perspective on evolving family therapy in Turkey. Contemporary Family Therapy, 35(2), 364–375.