Overview
Family therapy is a type of psychological counseling (psychotherapy) that can help family members improve communication and resolve conflicts.
Family therapy is usually provided by a psychologist, clinical social worker or licensed therapist. These therapists have graduate or postgraduate degrees and may be credentialed by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT).
Family therapy is often short term. It may include all family members or just those able or willing to participate. Your specific treatment plan will depend on your family’s situation. Family therapy sessions can teach you skills to deepen family connections and get through stressful times, even after you’re done going to therapy sessions.
Why it’s done
Family therapy can help you improve troubled relationships with your partner, children or other family members. You may address specific issues such as marital or financial problems, conflict between parents and children, or the impact of substance abuse or a mental illness on the entire family.
Your family may pursue family therapy along with other types of mental health treatment, especially if one of you has a mental illness or addiction that also requires additional therapy or rehabilitation treatment. For example:
- Family therapy can help family members cope if a relative has a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia — but the person who has schizophrenia should continue with his or her individualized treatment plan, which may include medications, one-on-one therapy or other treatment.
- In the case of addiction, the family can attend family therapy while the person who has an addiction participates in residential treatment. Sometimes the family may participate in family therapy even if the person with an addiction hasn’t sought out his or her own treatment.
Family therapy can be useful in any family situation that causes stress, grief, anger or conflict. It can help you and your family members understand one another better and learn coping skills to bring you closer together.
How you prepare
You can ask your doctor or other primary care provider for a referral to a therapist. Family members or friends may give recommendations based on their experiences. You also can ask your employee assistance program, clergy, or state or local mental health agencies for suggestions for therapists.
Before scheduling sessions with a therapist, consider whether the therapist would be a good fit for your family. Here are some factors to consider and questions to ask:
- Education and experience. What is your educational and training background? Are you licensed by the state? Are you accredited by the AAMFT or other professional organizations? Do you have specialty training in family psychotherapy? What is your experience with my family’s type of problem?
- Location and availability. Where is your office? What are your office hours? Are you available in case of emergency?
- Length and number of sessions. How long is each session? How often are sessions scheduled? How many sessions should I expect to have?
- Fees and insurance. How much do you charge for each session? Are your services covered by my health insurance plan? Will I need to pay the full fee upfront? What is your policy on canceled sessions?
What you can expect
Family therapy typically brings several family members together for therapy sessions. However, a family member may also see a family therapist individually.
Sessions typically take about 50 minutes to an hour. Family therapy is often short term — generally about 12 sessions. However, how often you meet and the number of sessions you’ll need will depend on your family’s particular situation and the therapist’s recommendation.
During family therapy, you can:
- Examine your family’s ability to solve problems and express thoughts and emotions in a productive manner
- Explore family roles, rules and behavior patterns to identify issues that contribute to conflict — and ways to work through these issues
- Identify your family’s strengths, such as caring for one another, and weaknesses, such as difficulty confiding in one another
Example: Depression
Say that your adult son has depression. Your family doesn’t understand his depression or how best to offer support. Although you’re worried about your son’s well-being, conversations with your son or other family members erupt into arguments and you feel frustrated and angry. Communication diminishes, decisions go unmade, family members avoid each other and the rift grows wider.
In such a situation, family therapy can help you:
- Pinpoint your specific challenges and how your family is handling them
- Learn new ways to interact and overcome unhealthy patterns of relating to each other
- Set individual and family goals and work on ways to achieve them
Results
Family therapy doesn’t automatically solve family conflicts or make an unpleasant situation go away. But it can help you and your family members understand one another better, and it can provide skills to cope with challenging situations in a more effective way. It may also help the family achieve a sense of togetherness.
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Your family is the first group you can count on in times of problems. How can you have that sense of security when there isn’t a healthy family relationship at home? That’s where family therapy comes into the picture. Here’s what you need to know on how important family therapy is.
What Is Family Therapy?
Has the environment in your home been murky lately? Is there an issue in the room that can’t be addressed? When marital issues, financial problems, or conflicts between children and parents are present, family therapy can be very beneficial. If you have a family member who has a mental illness or is struggling against substance abuse, family counseling will help each family member cope with the challenging situation.
Your family is the first group of people you can count on in times of problems. How can you have that sense of security when you don’t have a healthy family relationship at home? That’s where family therapy comes into the picture. Here’s what you need to know on how important family therapy is.
What Is Family Therapy?
Family therapy aims to develop and maintain healthy family relationships. The goal is to address the conflicts of the family as a unit, including conflicts each family member may have. These issues may be emotional, mental, behavioral, financial, or marital.
Family counseling may involve the nuclear family (the married couple and children), stepfamily, extended family members (siblings or grandparents). But the term ‘family’ is not limited to the same family name or being related by blood. It can be your best friend whom you consider as family or a roommate who has become family to you.
What Are the Benefits of Family Therapy?
The three goals of family therapy are to improve communication, deal with family conflicts, and create a better functioning home environment. Dealing with poor family dynamics for a long time may lead to mental health problems for each family member. This is why marriage and family therapy are important.
Unaddressed marital problems may eventually lead to divorce, which could be another cause of mental health issues. Who will be greatly affected? The children. Your child needs a psychiatrist because how they deal with your marital issues is important in their growth and development.
Here’s what you need to know about the benefits of family therapy and how it can help your family.
Related: How Can a Child Psychiatrist Help Your Kid?
1. Family Counseling Therapy Can Improve Family Communication
Bottled-up feelings, misunderstandings, and family problems stem from a lack of communication among family members. When family members have a hard time opening up to each other, it creates a gap between everyone. One family problem after another can snowball into one big problem, and all pent-up emotions may lead to a dysfunctional home environment.
The first major goal of family therapy sessions is to improve communication, get a clear understanding of each family member’s role and enable each member to voice out concerns and healthily express problems at home.
When the whole family sits down, talks openly, and expresses their concerns, this opens an opportunity for problem-solving. A family counselor acts as the neutral family mediator
2. It Enhances Family Relationships and Bonding
A family seeking the advice of a family counselor doesn’t necessarily have ongoing issues at home. Sometimes a family just wanting to improve the relationship and bonding at home can benefit a lot from therapy sessions. A family counselor can help you explore options, activities, and how the whole family can take time to bond.
Parents may find it hard to decipher their teenagers because they prefer to be alone in their room or choose to spend time with their friends. During family therapy, the parent and teenage child can sit down to explore options on how to spend quality time with each other and what are activities they can enjoy together.
3. Family Therapy Can Improve Mental Health
As we all know, stress is one major contributing factor to physical and mental health issues. If you’re stressed at work and at home, how can you take care of your physical well-being and mental health? Your family or your partner is the one you run to when you encounter life problems, but if the relationship at home is impaired, how can you cope with your physical and emotional stressors?
With the help of family counseling, family situations and what’s causing stress at home are discussed so that these issues may be addressed immediately. A family counselor will also help family members how to cope individually whenever challenging circumstances arise. These boil down to a stress-free life and help with each family member’s physical and mental health.
4. It Can Help Keep the Whole Family Intact
All couples fight and bicker. But if marital and family problems are not addressed in their early stage, they may end up destroying the whole situation. Worse, they may even end up in divorce.
Couples should resort to marriage and family therapy when things at home aren’t going right. Seeing and hearing you fight all the time may be traumatic to your children.
Here’s where a family therapist can step in and help. For the whole family unit to be intact, family therapy is a must. The family therapist’s goal is not just to solve conflicts but to keep the whole family together and enable them to have a healthy relationship at home.
How Do I Find a Good Family Therapist?
When looking for the best family therapist, you should look for a certified mental health provider. A good therapist will talk to the whole family and each family member, then ask questions to get into the root of what’s going on. After this, the therapist will formulate a treatment plan to solve family conflicts and improve family relationships.
The family therapist will help everyone communicate with each other and teach them how to deal with future problems. It’s easier to have the whole family involved when you seek the services of a certified family therapist online. Kentucky Counseling Center has online family therapy so even your little kids and elderlies who cannot leave the house because of the pandemic can also participate in the whole process.
