What is Family Therapy?
Published January 4th, 2023
5.5 min read
Family therapy looks at how different family members’ communication, behaviours, and habits impact each others’ mental health.
Written by Simon Spichak
Making a positive change is hard on your own. But it can be even harder when you’re a student living at home, especially if you have a rocky relationship with your family. Family therapy can help people work through their struggles by focusing on the inner workings of the family as a whole and working through problems together.
What’s the goal of family therapy?
Family therapy can help family members resolve conflicts, improve how they relate to each other, and help build a healthier dynamic.
Who benefits from family therapy?
Many types of families can benefit from therapy. This includes families who are:
Dealing with grief or the loss of a loved one
Struggling with complex mental health issues
Processing a divorce or significant family changes
In the process of adopting or fostering children
Helping support one or more members through mental illness
Interested in improving overall communication and cohesiveness within the family
Looking to reduce interpersonal conflict
Types of family therapy
There are many types of family therapy, each with its own use cases, advantages, and limitations.
Structural family therapy
Salvador Minuchin developed structural family therapy in the 1970s. It focuses on changing how individuals interact within the family to reduce stress and improve the mental health of the individuals within it. For example, if a teenager is depressed — structural family therapy can help the rest of the family better understand the condition and teach parents better ways to support their child.
Strategic family therapy
Strategic family therapy was developed specifically to help families who have children or teenagers engaging in unhealthy risk-taking behaviours — like drugs and binge drinking. It focuses on addressing underlying problems within the family that might contribute to individual members' problematic behaviours.
For example, some of these behaviours might be used as a way for teenagers to get attention from their parents, who might be spending too much time at work. By increasing how much time the youth spend with their parents, the therapist in this example could help prevent the teenagers from acting out and reduce their drug use and drinking.
Systemic family therapy
Systemic family therapy focuses on the idea that a person’s problems are related to family relationships, behaviours, and other life choices. It can help families identify the environmental factors or circumstances that might be causing stress or other mental health issues.
Narrative family therapy
Narrative family therapy focuses on different family members' stories and knowledge. Encouraging the family to share their stories and narratives can help them uncover the source of their problems, build compassion, and reduce feelings of shame. Framing events as part of this narrative also helps family members avoid blaming each other for problematic behaviours.
The goal of this form of therapy is to help empower the family unit and understand that their problems or mental health issues do not represent the whole of their identity.
Transgenerational family therapy
Transgenerational family therapy looks at the relationships of family members across different generations to spot familiar patterns of behaviours. Revealing any patterns that emerge can help family members reframe and understand their behaviours and relationships and could also help empower them to make positive changes.
Psychoeducational family therapy
Psychoeducational interventions focus on teaching individuals within the family about the specific mental health conditions that affect their children, as well as healthy coping strategies. This approach is shown to be effective in helping get symptoms under control and reducing the rates of relapse.
What does a family therapy session look like?
A family therapy session involves a conversation between family members facilitated by a therapist. During the session, the therapist will use some of these techniques:
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). CBT can help family members identify irrational thoughts or maladaptive thought patterns. It teaches them the skills to change some of these thought patterns and helps them cope with these thoughts and feelings in healthier ways.
Psychoeducation. This is a broad set of strategies involving everything from role-playing, which builds compassion between different family members, learning the signs of stress and other mental health conditions, and plans to improve communication.
Structural. These structural techniques focus on looking at the relationships within the family structure, helping family members set boundaries with each other, and changing the habits and inner communication strategies used within the family.
Takeaway
Family therapy can help individuals and families cope with stress, mental illness, grief, and other life changes. It can help family members better understand, relate, and communicate with each other while fostering hope and helping the individuals within the family develop healthy habits and boundaries.
Please note that this post is written for educational purposes; it is not therapy. If you need to talk to a professional, please book a consultation with a psychotherapist through Resolvve.
