Family therapy
When can family therapy help?
Families seek therapy for various reasons. Issues that family therapy helps address include:
- Tense relationships between family members
- Stress
- Anger
- Communication problems
- Trauma (physical or emotional)
- Coping with a family member’s acute or chronic illness, such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, stroke, chronic pain, or autoimmune disease
- Death of a loved one and grief
- Divorce or romantic relationships
- Coping with sudden changes such as unemployment, relocation, or imprisonment
Family therapy can also be beneficial when a family member has one of the following mental health conditions:
- Anxiety disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Eating disorders, such as anorexia
- Mood disorders, such as bipolar disorder and depression
- Personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Substance use disorder
Goals of family therapy
The goal of family therapy is to collaborate in treating all mental, emotional, or psychological issues that divide a family.
In order to guide the family towards a more fulfilling life, the aim of family therapists is to help individuals improve communication, resolve family issues, understand and address family situations, and create a more functional home environment.
The goals of family therapy depend on the problems presented by clients. For example, goals may differ in the following scenarios:
Issues stemming from intergenerational boundaries, such as when parents share a home with grandparents or when children are raised by grandparents. The goal is to improve communication and help family members establish healthy boundaries.
Families deviating from social norms, such as unmarried parents or same-sex couples raising children. The goal is not always to resolve specific internal issues, but family members may need help coping with external factors like societal attitudes.
Family members from different racial, cultural, or religious backgrounds. The goal is to help family members better understand each other and develop healthy relationships.
When one member is scapegoated or their individual therapy undermined. If a family member struggles with feeling excluded or receives limited support from other family members, the goal is to increase empathy and understanding towards the individual within the family and provide support for them to continue their therapy.
When an individual’s problems appear inseparably linked to issues with other family members. In cases where problems or issues are deeply rooted in interactions with other family members, the goal is to address all contributing factors and resolve or alleviate the pattern of interactions causing these issues.
Blended families (stepfamilies). Blended families may face challenges unique to their situation. In stepfamilies, family therapy aims to improve understanding among family members and facilitate healthy communication.
Types and forms of family therapy
Mental health practitioners employ various techniques in family therapy, many specializing in specific approaches. The choice of therapy type depends on your family’s specific needs and circumstances. Therapists may combine elements of different therapeutic approaches to better address your needs.
Here are some forms of family therapy in more detail:
- Functional Family Therapy (FFT): Therapists commonly use this type to assist families with behavioral issues in children. FFT assesses family dynamics contributing to the child’s problematic behavior, improves family communication and parenting skills, and supports positive reinforcement.
- Marriage Counseling / Couple Therapy: Focuses on the couple relationship, romantic partners. Marriage and family therapists aim to help couples identify their problems and find solutions. Issues may involve communication, parenting, finances, understanding one’s or their partner’s mental health, among others.
- Strategic Family Therapy: A short-term therapy focusing on making positive structural and behavioral changes within the family environment. It operates on the principle that the family plays the most crucial role in children’s lives and development. Therapists may use this approach with families dealing with children’s behavioral issues.
- Structural Family Therapy: This therapy examines intra-family relationships, boundaries, and hierarchy (its structure). The focus is on direct communication among your family members, the primary means of eliciting positive changes. Structural family therapy is based on the premise that, guided by the therapist, families discover alternatives to their problematic patterns of interaction.
- Systemic Family Therapy: Systemic family therapy addresses family issues in various contexts. For instance, the therapist examines how a family member functions as a romantic partner, parent, and child to their parents. Context includes cultural, religious, and political views, as well as socio-economic status. This approach considers context crucial for psychological development and emotional well-being.
Family therapy primarily involves discussions where all family members have the opportunity to express themselves openly and be heard. Therapists may also observe family dynamics and interactions in the family’s agreed-upon environment to notice nuances that individuals may not consciously perceive.
The frequency of family meetings depends on the nature and urgency of the problem. Sessions may occur weekly or once every few months. In family therapy, all individuals living together or involved in the issue should participate. Sometimes therapy can begin with just one or a couple of family members, which can still help alleviate the problematic situation, as changes in one family member’s behavior can affect others as well.
Does family therapy work?
The benefits of family therapy include:
- Better understanding of healthy boundaries, family models, and dynamics.
- Improved communication.
- Enhanced problem-solving skills.
- Deeper empathy.
- Reduced conflicts and improved anger management skills.
More specifically, family therapy can improve family relationships in the following ways:
- Bringing the family together after a crisis.
- Establishing honesty among family members.
- Building trust among family members.
- Creating a supportive family environment.
- Reducing intra-family tensions and sources of stress.
- Helping family members forgive each other.
- Resolving conflicts among family members.
- Reintegrating isolated family members.
Family therapy improves the skills necessary for better functioning of the family, including communication, conflict resolution, and problem-solving. Enhancing these skills also increases the potential for success in overcoming and addressing family issues.
In family therapy, the focus is on equipping all family members with the tools needed to facilitate healing.
