Judith Myers Avis

I first became aware of Judith Myers Avis's work in feminism and family therapy in the 1980s. At that time, she carried out the first systematic feminist research on supervision and training in a creative Delphi study using feminist-informed panelists. She found that participants told her (as they had told Dorothy Wheeler, who did a related study) that this was the first opportunity many of us had to know of each other and to share our ideas. Through the research, we saw and commented on the ideas of other feminist family therapists and identified their voices. This research became Judy's dissertation at Purdue University where she received her PhD 1986. Actually, as early as 1982 she had developed courses on women, gender, and feminist counseling at the University of St. Thomas in New Brunswick, Canada. Indeed, it was in the province of New Brunswick in the 1970s that Judy helped establish the first English-speaking social work program.

Judy's work also provided a critique, well before others' did, of the widespread lack among family therapists of adequate understanding, response, or education in regard to abuse in general, and to the abuse of women and to child sexual abuse, in particular. Because of her ground-breaking work on family violence, I invited Judy to organize the Presidential Plenary on Violence in Families for the 1991 AFTA Annual Meeting.

Recall that in 1990 there was hardly any attention paid in our field to family violence. Only one article regarding abuse appeared that year in any of the major family therapy journals. To name male violence and to hold men responsible for their violence was not a popular idea at that time when our field was imbued with systemic ideas about "circular causality." It was a time when therapists were claiming that provocative, nagging women and non-protective mothers were responsible for abuse committed by male partners, fathers, and family members. The end of the causal circle seemed to land on women.

Although many of us had experienced ostracism and anger back in the 1970s and '80s when we introduced feminist ideas at our universities and training centers, we were unprepared for the furor in AFTA that followed the plenary, and the criticism directed at those who presented. And today, to go back and listen to the audiotape of that plenary is to wonder what all the furor was about. What aroused gender-related anxieties and backlash a decade ago is now common wisdom. Despite the unpopularity of the message among some family therapists in 1991, the field has changed significantly in its response to violence and abuse in families since that time. Judy played a major role in that transformation. It can truly be said that it was Judy Myers Avis who flattened down the barbed wire for the rest of us to advance across. Due to her courage and innovative leadership in breaking the silence, we are now able to confront the issue of domestic violence in our practices, training, and in the public forum.

Judy has continued her commitment to educating therapists regarding family abuse and violence. One of her important contributions back in 1988 was the development of a course on working with abuse and violence within families as a requirement in an AAMFT accredited masters program. It may well have been the first such course offered in a family therapy training program, and undoubtedly the first to be required. This was at the University of Guelph in Canada where she  is Professor and former Director of the Couple and Family Therapy Program and Centre. In large part through Judy's efforts, the Guelph program was the first in Canada to be accredited by AAMFT.

Over the past decade, Judy has seen the importance of integrating feminist and narrative ideas. She has recognized that narrative work without a feminist consciousness lacks a critical political perspective in relation to gender politics. She has also found that feminist work is enhanced by utilizing narrative therapy's ways of understanding the oppressive power of dominant stories, privileging marginalized voices, and addressing power inequities. Judy has developed theory, practice, and training exercises that help clients and trainees to deconstruct gender narratives as oppressive practices. In Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, she has taught courses on feminist perspectives on family therapy, on gender and power, on violence and abuse in families, and on integrating feminist and narrative ideas. Her work draws on narrative, feminist, systems, trauma, and spiritual perspectives.

Judy has published extensively and internationally on these subjects. She is co-author of a book on group treatment for sexually abused adolescents, the author or co-author of more than forty articles in international journals, book chapters, and research reports. She has served on the editorial boards of Family ProcessJournal of Marital and Family TherapyJournal of Feminist Family Therapy, and Contemporary Family Therapy. She has given over one hundred conference presentations, keynote addresses, and training workshops in different parts of the world. She has received many awards and honors in recognition of her work. Among her recent awards are the Distinguished Professor Teaching Award at the University of Guelph, the Award for Significant Contributions to Family Therapy from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the 2000 Millennium Psychotherapy Conference Award for Significant Contributions to the Field of Psychotherapy. Her publication record and the awards and honors bestowed on her attest to the importance of her leadership and ideas to the field of family therapy.

AFTA is honored to recognize the ground-breaking ideas, the leadership, and the dedication of Judith Myers Avis and to present her with the American Family Therapy Academy Award for Innovative Contributions to Family Therapy.

Rachel T. Hare-MustinPh.D. has served as an AFTA Board Member, AFTA Secretary, President, and Bylaws Committee Chair. She chaired an Interest Group on Gender and Humor with Jo-Ann Krestan. She has written on postmodern theory and narrative therapy as well as feminist theory.