Hard at Home: Is Family Counselling Right For You?
Photo by Gus Moretta on Unsplash
Most of us strive for a happy, stable family, but unfortunately, this is not always easy to achieve.
Humans are social creatures, so it’s natural society has formed around family units, creating tight-knit structures that live, breathe, and play together throughout their lives. While some families glide through life and can resolve any issues within the family unit, others may experience disagreements, stress, and conflict, which requires additional, outside support.
When further support is required, family counselling, also known as family therapy, can help solve issues and restore balance. Even the healthiest of families may require assistance on occasion, and accepting you need outside help to manage internal issues is important and can help achieve resolution much quicker and more effectively.
What is family therapy?
Family therapy, or counselling, is a form of therapy that aims to improve the relationship between family members. It can help the family cope with challenging periods, resolve conflict, improve their communication skills, and generally strengthen the overall relationships within the unit.
Family therapy can help with;
- Relationships: strained or long-distance relationships, families going through separation or divorce, or other relationship-based issues.
- Trauma: childhood trauma, generational trauma, or trauma resulting from stressful or harmful circumstances.
- Emotions: managing emotions such as anxiety, stress, or anger.
- Grief: coping with the death of a loved one.
- Life changes: life transitions such as moving homes, unemployment, or incarceration.
- Parenting: parenting arrangements between two parties who disagree or who may be separating.
- Communication: poor communication between family members.
While family therapy generally focuses on working with all family members and has every person present at sessions, individual therapy sessions may also occur, depending on the family’s needs. A family therapist’s ultimate goal is to create a happy, safe, family unit.
Family therapy focuses on the entire family unit, rather than an individual. Photo by YuriArcursPeopleimages on Envato
How does family therapy differ from other forms of therapy?
During family therapy, a therapist will act as an unbiased facilitator and interpreter of all discussions. It differs from other types of therapy in that it focuses on the entire family unit as a living, breathing system, as opposed to one-to-one therapy where the focus remains on the individual.
Family therapy works towards successful outcomes for the whole unit. This is done by reviewing and working with the overall dynamics of a family, improving communication between individual family members, and clarifying issues. It is likely a family therapist will also use different therapeutic models than those used for one-on-one therapy, including structural family therapy, strategic family therapy, and narrative family therapy.
If you are currently experiencing conflict with your loved ones, reaching out to a few family therapists to find one you all feel comfortable with may be a good idea. Take the time to properly discuss your thoughts and feelings, as well as those of your other family members, and a family therapist will be able to advise on the best next steps.
What are the benefits of family therapy?
The benefits of family therapy will vary from family to family, but the general overall goal in most cases is to create a unit that can provide support to one another.
This supportive environment is achieved through:
- Improving communication and the ability to convey wants and needs for each individual and as a collective effectively.
- Developing empathy and compassion for others by teaching an individual to extend one’s focus beyond themselves.
- Helping develop healthy boundaries between family members.
- Sharing coping tools and mechanisms to assist members in dealing with complicated family issues.
- Educating family members on the impact of mental illness.
- Reducing stress for family caregivers.
How to know if family therapy is right for you
It is not always clear when the problems a family faces require therapy. Sometimes, issues arise slowly and the extent of it is not clear until the actual breaking point. Other times it is abundantly clear that outside assistance is needed, and the sooner you reach out for help, the better.
If your family is experiencing any of the following, it could be a sign therapy is needed and you may want to consider getting in touch with a qualified counselling professional who has completed relevant certifications such as the Graduate Certificate in Counselling online;
- Functioning issues: if family members are having trouble functioning within their normal capacity, or if things that were generally considered routine have now become difficult, therapy may be required.
- Escalating conflict: if your family is experiencing persistent conflict that is escalating in frequency or intensity, and it is causing distress or harm to any family member, addressing the issue with a therapist may be able to help.
- Extreme emotional reactions: consistent, extreme reactions such as excessive fear, anger, sadness, or depression may be a cause to talk to a family therapist.
- Withdrawal: when a breakdown in communication results in stonewalling or ‘the silent treatment’, or when family members begin to isolate themselves from the rest of the unit, a therapist may help determine why they are withdrawing and how this can be addressed.
- Unresolved trauma: family members may carry their own baggage or trauma which can impact their present-day relationships, including those within the family. There may also be shared trauma amongst the family, perhaps through the loss of a loved one. A family therapist can help the entire family unit work through this trauma.
- Violence: violence or threats of violence within a home can benefit from a therapist’s intervention.
- Substance abuse: if a family member is abusing substances, including drugs or alcohol, it can severely impact other members of the unit. Family therapy can help intervene by opening communication channels around the impact of substance abuse.
- Behavioural changes in children: changes in a child’s behaviour at home or school, including poor grades, aggressive social interactions, or attendance issues, can place strain on a family. Therapists can look for causes for behavioural change and put strategies in place to address it.
- Other major life transitions: the birth of a new child, moving homes, changing schools, divorce, remarriage, or the death of a loved one can all severely impact individuals and families alike. Family therapy can offer support during these major life changes.
