For many, life revolves around Home. Home is a safe place to rest and recharge around the people you love, unfortunately, between the complex relationships and conflicting needs and wants of family members, it’s natural to feel like home can be too much to deal with. Thankfully, family therapy can help you and you loved ones get your lives back on track in a healthier and happier way.  

What is family therapy? 

Family therapy is a form of therapy conducted by psychologists and counsellors the primarily focuses on improving the relationships between family members. Therapists will have any number of ways to achieve this depending on their clients’ needs and personal style. However, broadly, family therapy will focus on exposing problems from each family member and working on building skills to rectify them. 

Why should we go to family therapy? 

Family therapy can have benefits for almost any family; however, it is particularly important for those who are experiencing some sort of major upheaval. Common reasons families seek a therapists help include things such as:  

• Major challenges, such as illness or death 

• Divorce or parental separation 

• Breakdowns in family relationships 

• Stepfamily situations causing friction 

• Behavioural issues  

• Supporting one family member through a difficult time. 

Please remember that there aren’t any necessary criteria for needing therapy, and if you feel that you could benefit from it, there’s definitely something you’ll gain.  

What should we expect to happen? 

Depending on your therapist, their approach to treating your family may vary depending on their style and your needs. That said, family therapy is commonly broken into three major approaches: 

• Structural: Structural therapy primarily addresses the structure and pre-existing roles within the family unit.  Sometimes, these pre-determined roles can foster problematic relationships and environments. The structural approach aims to restructure and improve these dynamics in a safe and respectful way. 

• Behavioural: As the name suggests, this approach is all about focusing on and modifying problematic behaviours that harm relationships within the family unit. 

• Systemic: The systemic approach treats the family as a single unit and looks at how to improve the interactions between members of that family system.  

Different approaches aside, you can also expect your therapist to engage in activities such as opening lines of healthy communication, conflict resolution, and presenting therapeutic tools and strategies that you and your family can engage with to improve on your own.  

What are the benefits? 

Families that are successful in therapy can often expect results such as: 

• Improved communication and expression of needs and boundaries 

• Less conflict and easier conflict resolution 

• Resolution of underlying issues in the family 

• Changes to negative patterns of behaviour  

Are there any problems with therapy? 

Therapy like this relies on full participation from everyone involved. The reality is that even though you may feel that therapy is the best option, other members of your family may not. In these instances, individual therapy may be more fruitful.  

Home should be a safe and stress-free environment, but even if it isn’t, with a little hard work and the help of a good therapist, you and your loved ones can get back to being the family you want to be.  

Contact Michaela 

Mobile: +61 0400391779