Facilitation of a family’s expression of thoughts and feelings about loss and coping with a relative’s illness and death to promote shared grief and optimal family functioning, often commenced during palliative care (with the ill relative attending) and continued into bereavement after the patient’s death.
It is a preventive model of family-centered care for families at risk of poor psychosocial outcome, as recognized by screening or clinical assessment.

To prevent maladaptive outcomes, a family therapist leads family sessions through the following stages
• assessment
• agreement about the focus of work
• active therapy
• consolidation
• termination.

Treatment takes 6-12 sessions, each lasting 90 minutes, and extending over 6-18 months, with later consolidation sessions spaced more widely. Length of treatment depends on degree of family dysfunction.

Kissane DW et al. Family focused grief therapy: a randomized, controlled trial in palliative care and bereavement. Am J Psychiatry 2006;163:1208-1218. Internet. Accessed on 11 December 2012.