According to the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, 90% of those receiving treatment report an improvement in emotional health. If this type of improvement can happen with all members of your family, you will see an overall improvement in your household dynamic.
The word "family" can mean something different for everyone. Family members do not have to be blood relatives. When talking about family therapy, the term "family" refers to everyone living in your home with you.
Often, those who seek therapy are families that include parents and children living together either part-time or full-time. Family can consist of step-parents and half or step-children.
Families do not get along all the time. It is impossible for multiple people to live under the same roof and not have a disagreement. Conflict resolution, communication skills, and problem-solving are a few areas in which most families need help.
Family therapy can help with these and many other problems specific to your household. The overall goal is to help your family learn how to work better together. You are a team. Working with a family therapist can improve your team. Below are just a few examples of how therapy can help.
Family Therapy Helps With Financial Disagreements
Money issues arise within most families, even those with a lot of it, leading to everyone feeling stressed and anxious. Most financial arguments happen because family members are not on the same page, or communication about the finances is not shared.
Family therapists help your whole family set financial goals, develop steps to reach goals, and communicate appropriately about money.
Spending is often linked with emotions. So, family therapists can also help your family learn to recognize and overcome emotional spending habits.
Family Therapy Helps Families Handle the Unexpected
There are times when life throws unexpected events, your way that can be devastating for the members of your family. The death of a loved one, loss of a job, addiction of a family member, and major accidents, injuries, or illnesses are a few examples.
When life-altering events happen in a family, each person handles it differently. Family therapists can help you work through these changes and make the differences work for you, not against you. This will help your family become a much stronger team, improving your ability to overcome traumatic events.
Family Therapy Helps Siblings
Some sibling relationships can be good one hour, and the very next hour, a fight occurs. Some siblings live in the same home but do not have a relationship at all. Neither situation is ideal.
Siblings have unique needs. They each need to feel like they are a vital part of the family. Therapists can help parents avoid comparisons, as well as how to recognize and utilize the strengths of each.
Therapists can teach siblings better communication skills, including how to listen and reflect. They can also learn anger management and problem-solving techniques specific to their living situation.
Family Therapy Helps Parents
Parents are not always on the same page when it comes to raising children, home chores, finances, how to discipline, and the roles they have within the family.
Therapists help them sort through every area causing trouble in the way they parent and devise a solution that is best for the entire family.
Communication is probably the most significant area for improvement among parents. Not communicating enough, language use when communicating, non-verbal communication, and over-communicating are examples of areas that need improvement among parents.
Family Therapy Helps Individuals
When talking about "family therapy," you may think that it only means working with the whole family at the same time. This is a myth, sort of. You will attend therapy with family members, but not all the time. There will be sessions that involve just you, giving you the safe space and attention needed to express yourself freely and work on individual needs.
You will have areas for improvement that differ from other family members. Individual sessions are geared to help you with those.
Family Therapy Helps With Much More
The benefits of family therapy go well beyond what is mentioned above. Positive outcomes include building healthy boundaries, empathy, expressing emotions correctly, and trust, to name a few more. It can even help you improve extended family relationships, like in-laws, grandparents, and those you consider family, but not blood-related.
How Does Family Therapy Work?
Many people think family therapy goes on and on forever because as families grow, so do their problems. This is not the case, however.
Family therapy is established to last around 15 sessions, and many times they end before 15 sessions. The length of your treatment depends on the effort you put into it. The amount of sessions is also dependent on the amount of issues to be resolved and the history of how long these issues have been occurring.
Typical family therapy sessions are held weekly for an hour or more. Your family therapist will likely give you short assignments to implement therapeutic tools between the times you meet. These are activities to improve your family relationships and practice what you learned in the session.
Your therapist has many types of therapy from which to choose. He or she will pick the strategy that will benefit your family the most. Examples include structural therapy, which is used to help family members improve how you interact with one another investigating the dynamics and alliances between various family members.
Another type is communication therapy, focusing on why you communicate the way you do. Are there cultural differences, language differences, past abuse issues, or mental health issues that shape your communication style? Processing these sessions together can help your family members understand and adapt the way you communicate with each other.
Relationship counseling, systemic and strategic counseling, narrative therapy, and psychoeducation are other examples.
Now that you have a better understanding of family therapy, you can start looking for a therapist in your area. Rather than just picking a name out of the phone book, look for someone specializing in your specific family issues. And make sure they are licensed or certified in their profession.
You deserve the best, a therapist who can help your family thrive.