Family Relationship Counseling
Family therapy is a type of treatment designed to help with issues that specifically affect families' mental health and functioning. It can help individual family members build stronger relationships, improve communication, and manage conflicts within the family system. By improving how family members interact and relate to one another, family therapy can foster change in close relationships.
Some of the primary goals of family therapy are to create a better home environment, solve family issues, and understand the unique issues that a family might face.
Types of Family Therapy
There are several types of family therapy. A few that you might encounter include:
Family Systems Therapy
This type is an approach that focuses on helping people utilize the strengths of their relationships to overcome mental health problems.
Some therapists may stick with a specific type of family therapy. In contrast, others may take a more multifaceted approach that incorporates aspects of different types of treatment to suit the needs of the family.
Technique
The techniques utilized in family therapy typically depend on factors such as the theoretical orientation of the therapist and the specific needs of the family. Some methods that may be utilized include:
Behavioral Techniques
These methods often focus on skills training and psychoeducation to help family members address specific problems. For example, modeling and role-playing might be used to help family members resolve communication problems.
Techniques used in family therapy focus on improving emotional awareness, assisting with major changes within a family, helping people accept things they cannot control, and improving communication and collaboration.
Other specific techniques used in family therapy may include learning to practice empathy, emotional validation, reflective listening, and cognitive reframing.
What Family Therapy Can Help With
Family therapy can help people with many different issues. Some of these include:
· Behavioral problems in children or teens
· Changes within the family
· Communication problems
· Death of a loved one
· Divorce, separation, or marital problems
· Parent-child conflicts
· Problems between siblings
· Parenting issues
· Stressful events or major life transitions
· Trauma
This type of therapy can also address individual mental health problems that can affect the entire family, such as anxiety, chronic illness, depression, and substance use.
Benefits of Family Therapy
Because this form of treatment addresses communication, family members can learn how to better share their thoughts and needs and resolve conflicts in a way that is less likely to damage relationships.
This type of therapy also focuses on how family members can address an individual family member’s difficulty. For example, if one family member has a mental health condition, family therapy can help alter some conditions that sometimes contribute to the problem.
When individuals are affected by mental illness, family members may sometimes lack awareness of how to help. As a result, they may engage in behaviors that maintain or even worsen aspects of the illness.1 Family therapy can help members of the family learn more about what they can do to support their family member who has a mental disorder while preserving their own mental well-being.
Things to Consider
Because family therapy involves talking about emotional problems and conflicts, it can be difficult and upsetting. In some cases, people may initially feel worse before they begin to improve. It is important to remember that a professional therapist is there to help members of the family work through these conflicts and handle the intense emotions that people may experience.
While family therapy can be useful for various issues, that doesn’t mean it is right for everyone or every situation. Some other types of treatment that may also be useful include cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or child psychotherapy.
How to Get Started
Family therapy is often short-term, but it may also take place for a year or longer, depending on the situation and needs of the family. While it frequently involves all family unit members, it may also focus on those who are willing or able to participate in treatment.
During therapy sessions, the therapist will ask questions to learn more about the problems that have brought the family to therapy. They will also look at other factors contributing to issues, such as underlying mental health conditions and environmental stress.
