The Ultimate Guide To Family Counseling
And Psychotherapy
There's not much question that when a family is happy and healthy, all seems to be right in the world. Both parents and children experience great joy within the confines of a healthy and stable family relationship.
Sad to say, not all families are happy, healthy, and stable all the time. The stresses and difficulties of modern life, a family crisis, the need for better work-life balance, and emotional and mental health challenges can bring a family down to its knees.
When this happens, psychotherapy and family counseling services, like Portneuf Valley Family Center counseling, may be able to help. But, before that, it would pay for you to understand the difference between psychotherapy and family counseling.
Psychotherapy VS Family Counseling
Also known as talk therapy, psychotherapy is a scientific method that helps people with various emotional troubles and mental disorders. It can help in controlling or eliminating the troubling symptoms so that a person can function better and increase their quality of life.
Family counseling, on the other hand, is a format of psychotherapy. It focuses more on maintaining a functional and healthy family relationship. The goal of this kind of therapy is to determine and address issues-behavioral, psychological, or emotional-in a family.
7 Types Of Family Counseling
Family counseling helps in solving family issues and creating a better home environment. Depending on the issues within a family, a psychiatrist can use and follow different family counseling techniques. Some of the most common types of family counseling include:
1. Systematic Family Counseling
Systematic family counseling focuses more on the belief systems of the family. Every family member has different socio-cultural beliefs and perceptions that play an important role in the family dynamics.
The broader cultural context can create change in members' behavioral patterns. A systematic family therapist can promote family-level solutions rather than perceiving something as a single member's issue.
2. Transgenerational Family Counseling
This kind of family counseling involves the therapist examining interactions across generations, for instance, between kids and parents, and how they differ. This type aims to understand how this difference can cause issues in the family.
Transgenerational counseling is beneficial when behavior patterns and issues persist across generations. It can also be used to predict how issues might develop in the near future by understanding past difficulties and understanding how the family responded to them.
3. Brief Strategic Family Counseling
This approach to psychotherapy is usually limited to around 12 sessions. The goal here is to determine and restructure family interactions that lead to problematic behavior showing in youths.
In general, the therapist will focus on making changes to family behaviors that aren't helpful for a young individual in crisis, as well as strengthening positive patterns. Also, the therapist will most likely assign tasks to members to assess how the whole family communicates, and adjusting as needed.
4. Narrative Family Counseling
With this kind of family therapy, the theory is that all people are storytellers, each having their own narratives on how things are. Throughout life, personal experiences and stories ultimately shape a person's identity.
Narrative therapy can help separate the person from the issue. It allows family members to rely on their own skills and view issues objectively, instead of looking at them through the lens of the narrative that they've created.
And, as the narrator of their own story, each member has the capacity to rewrite it, teaching them to make room for other stories and framing issues within a larger socio-cultural context to help them be more objective.
5. Structural Family Counseling
Structural family counseling was developed in the 1960s by Salvador Minuchin. It's based on the idea that behavioral and emotional concerns in teens and children are often connected to the dysfunctional family structure.
This therapy aims to help build and achieve a balanced and functioning family hierarchy with proper boundaries between family members. The treatment focuses more on understanding subsystems and boundaries within a family, allowing members to interact more effectively.
6. Functional Family Counseling
This short-term treatment, which usually lasts between eight to 30 weeks, is focused on families with adolescents or children with complex behavioral and emotional problems, such as violence, substance abuse, and risky behaviors.
The sessions can help families learn strategies and solutions in dealing with the children's emotional and behavioral patterns, building respect and trust for each member, and ultimately improving family functioning.
7. Psychoeducation
This strategy of family counseling allows those with mental health issues, like depression, to understand their condition better. By knowing and understanding more about available treatment and medication options, as well as self-help approaches, family members can function as a robust support system around them.
This should help members with mental health conditions control their behavior, mitigate symptoms, and ultimately function better within the family unit.
When To Seek Family Counseling?
If your family is experiencing the following things, then it may be time to consider engaging the services of a qualified professional family therapist.
- Addiction or substance abuse
- Conflicts between family members
- Problems in school
- A family member suffering from a mental illness
- Behavioral problems in kids
- Inconsistent parenting
- Difficulties between siblings
- A family member suffering from a disease or sudden death
- Infidelity, separation, or divorce
- Taking care of a family member with special needs
- Issues with extended family members
- Shared custody of children
- Marital problems
- Adapting to major changes
Benefits Of Family Counseling
Family counseling is very beneficial to struggling families. These can include:
- Improving communications
- Developing healthy boundaries
- Improving the problem-solving abilities of your family
- Improving family relationships and dynamics
- Addressing dysfunctional interaction
- Defining someone's role within the family
- Providing coping tools and strength for family members
- Addressing issues like conduct disorders, offending behavior, and substance addictions in children
What To Expect? A Look At Family Counseling Sessions
Despite various techniques and strategies used, family counseling often shares specific similar goals, including:
- Determining and improving unhealthy communication patterns in the family
- Exploring how members interact with each other
- Equipping families with better problem-solving skills
- Organizing and strengthening a family's positive practices and resources
While therapists have their individual counselling styles, here's a basic format of family counselling:
Step 1: Initial Meeting During your first meeting, your family and the therapist will often discuss the issue that brought you and your family to therapy. The therapist will give each family member a chance to talk about what they think is the main issue that the family is facing (or theirs) and why.
Step 2: Assessment The therapist will simply gather more information from you and your family for the next few sessions, building up a picture of how your family works. These include:
- Family roles
- Family history
- Coping skills that your family used
- Discipline and parenting approaches
The therapist should start understanding the issues and crises that your family experienced and how you dealt with these problems as individuals and together.
Step 3: Family Structure Mapping If the therapist uses a structural technique, the next step to counseling may involve creating a map that explains the hierarchy in your family. This map can help describe how boundaries and authority work in your family, including ways that they may be shifting over time.
Step 4: Formulating a Treatment Plan Your family therapist helps in solving issues within your family instead of assigning blame. Your therapist will work with you and your family to discuss a plan that outlines what you and other members can do to change the unhealthy patterns and communication, and enhancing problem-solving skills.
This treatment plan can also include looking for new ways to boost the unique strengths of your family.
Looking For a Family Therapist? 6 Factors To Consider
If you and your family decided to do therapy, finding the right professional can be daunting. It's important that you find someone you feel safe and comfortable with in order to get the most out of your counseling sessions.
So, when looking for a therapist, here are a few worthy considerations:
1. Qualifications
First and foremost, you want to rely on a professional with proper qualifications. Don't be afraid to ask about the accreditations of the therapist. It's reasonable to want to know if the therapist has the knowledge and skills needed in order to help your family.
In general, family therapy is provided by a mental health professional who's specially trained in psychotherapy for family systems or couples. They usually have advanced degrees, such as Ph.D. or a master's degree in a mental health field focused on family and marriage therapy.
In order to become state-licensed, a family therapist should complete a supervised clinical fellowship that's usually two years. Those with a Ph.D. or master's degree should also complete and pass the licensure exam conducted by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Board or Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards, respectively.
2. Experience And Specializations
If you want family counseling for a specific issue, then you might need a specialist. In general, specialist therapists are trained for more particular fields of knowledge in order to help you and your family on your journey, over those professionals using the general approach.
You also want to consider how long they've been in practice, as well as their success rate in fixing dysfunctional families.
3. Environment
In general, family counseling happens in your therapist's office. So, if possible, make sure to look at images and photos of the therapy space that your counselor or therapist uses. With everything available on the Internet, you can easily take a quick look at their website.
Consider the kind of space that you and your family are most comfortable in. If you're more comfortable doing therapy at your home, there are several therapists that can do home service. Or, you can try therapists that offer video or telehealth therapy so you and your family can be counseled from the comforts of your home.
4. Personal And Religious Differences
Experience and qualifications are important, but you also need to consider if your personality and religious beliefs are compatible. This is worth considering to ensure a comfortable counseling session.
Would you be more comfortable speaking with a therapist of a specific gender? Do you want a therapist with the same religious affiliation as yours? These questions can help you in figuring out which family therapists are a good match for you.
You might find that the personality of a family therapist doesn't go well with yours or a family member's. So, if that's the case, it is okay to find a new one.
5. Insurance Eligibility
Today, mental health services are now covered by standard health insurance. Unfortunately, family counseling isn't always considered mental health care. So, make sure that the therapist you choose is covered under your health insurance benefit.
Doing so can also help remove the large chunk of financial stress when making the decision to get help.
6. Trial Sessions
Some family therapists offer trial counseling sessions at a discounted rate or completely free. This can be a low-commitment, low-cost way to determine if a particular therapist is a good match for you and your family.
Typically, they'll offer a session or two for free, so you can find out if they can really help you, or if it's worth booking in more sessions.
Finding the right therapist for your family counseling right away is nice. However, don't be discouraged if it takes several attempts to find the right one. It's normal to change therapists, especially when you feel like your family issues aren't getting any better. Doing so can often lead to a better experience.
Conclusion
Family counseling is a huge, scary step, but is necessary for solving a dysfunctional family and getting enough support when problems and issues seem insurmountable.
While family counseling may take different forms, it generally works towards the same goal-to understand every member within the family and strengthen that system.
Remember, trying family therapy isn't admitting defeat, but, rather, a smart move to build a more stable, secure, and happier family.
