Family therapy is a type of treatment that’s carefully designed and aimed at working through the issues that cause problems in your family.
The issues are more than likely affecting your family’s health and functioning. Usually, family therapy may be recommended if your family is going through a challenging period, a troublesome transition, or if your family is rocked with behavioral or mental health complications affecting some or a family member. It can also be recommended to gain communication skills and increase family members’ tolerance for positively dealing with one another.
Do note that family therapy is not limited to just members or a nuclear family. Other than involving all the members of a nuclear family, family therapy can help address issues affecting stepfamilies and, in some cases, even include extended family members.
Usually, you will need to work with a qualified therapist or team of therapists who will be running multiple sessions to help your family deal with the issues affecting the health and normal functioning of the family unit and even the home environment in general.
How Family Therapy Can Benefit your Family
To begin with, family therapy can help improve the relationship you have with your partner if it has been a troubled one. Importantly, it can also help improve your relationship with other family members and children.
Some of the common issues that family therapy can help you address and solve amicably include parent-children conflicts and financial problems. If your family has been affected by substance abuse, family therapy can help you manage the effects of substance abuse on your whole family. Here are three ways family therapy can be of help to your family.
1. Setting Better Boundaries
For your family to function well, you need boundaries that all family members must be aware of. Family therapy can help you determine better boundaries to help your children develop self-control, be part of society, and, most importantly, feel safe and taken care of in the family.
For parents, healthy boundaries can help you look after your family members and yourself better. The bottom line is to develop suitable relationships and behavior in your family.
2. Promoting Understanding and Healing
Understanding is vital in your family because, as parents, it helps you realize and have a good knowledge of you and your children’s emotional development as you and the children grow. Family therapy can help you learn to understand the evolving needs of every member of your family to ensure that it functions well.
3. Allowing and Encouraging Sharing of Emotions among Family Members
Emotional support is important in families because it makes it easy for you to cope with the stresses that come with life. Again for children, emotional support will make them feel more secure and more loved within the family.
Importantly, sharing emotions will also make it easy for your family to work as one large team and, most importantly, enjoy the company of each other. To wrap all that up, you may also use family therapy as a tool to foster emotion sharing for positive relationships in your family and to promote unity.
Get Help
Has your family been through a rough patch that you think family therapy can help correct? It won’t help if you wait too long. Contact us today to schedule an appointment with one of our knowledgeable family therapists.
