Family Counselling + Therapy
Family therapy is a type of psychological counselling (psychotherapy) done to help family members improve communication and resolve conflicts.
Family therapy is often short term. It may include all family members or just those most able to participate. The 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.
In the process of improving troubled relationships with your spouse, children, or other family members, you may address specific issues such as marital or financial problems, conflict between parents and children, or the effects 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 Individual Counselling and Therapy or rehabilitation treatment. For example, family therapy can help family members cope if a relative has schizophrenia, while the person who has schizophrenia continues his or her individualized treatment plan, which may include medications, one-on-one counselling 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 addicted person hasn’t sought out his or her own treatment.
During family therapy, you’ll examine your family’s ability to solve problems and express thoughts and emotions. This process will help you pinpoint your specific challenges and how your family is handling them. You may explore family roles, rules and behaviour patterns in order to identify issues that contribute to conflict — as well as ways to work through these issues. You may set individual and family goals and work on ways to achieve them Family therapy may help you identify your family’s strengths, such as caring for one another, and weaknesses, such as difficulty confiding in one another. Guided by your therapist, you’ll learn new ways to interact and overcome unhealthy patterns of relating to each other that you can continue to use long after therapy is over.
Keys to Family Resilience
Family Belief Systems
- Making meaning of adversity
- Positive outlook
- Transcendence and spirituality
Organizational Patterns
- Flexibility
- Connectedness
- Social and economic resources
Communiaction Processes
- Clarity
- Open emotional expression
- Collaborative problem solving