Family therapy is therapy involving 2 or more individuals who are willing to work towards improving their relationship.
As a matter of fact, it can include therapy with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, close friends, chosen family, or any number of combinations.
In the beginning, it starts with outlining mutual goals and establishing a treatment plan.
From there, it includes psychoeducation, exercises in communication, enactments, role plays, and prescribed activities focused on helping meet the established goals.
Does It Really Work?
Yes! I personally fell in love with family work when I was working in long term residential treatment for adolescent females in Utah. The program I worked at included intensive family work. Families participated in 1.5 hours of therapy and engaged in weekend intensives every two months. Furthermore, families could opt to have clinicians visit their home for an intensive.
Working there, I came to see and understand how vital family work is. An individual’s problems do not come from a void. Importantly, it addresses struggles within the system itself to promote lasting change for not just the individual, but the family as a whole.
And research supports that! Check out this article on better long-term impacts when a family is engaged in therapy.
When Should You Try Family Therapy?
As soon as you realize there is something helpful to work on! Too often problems grow until they have become almost insurmountable. Thus, the sooner you are able to start it, the easier and more quickly you can address the current struggles.
In addition, families can start therapy preemptively – knowing there are things they would like to get ahead of.
What Happens in Family Sessions?
Family sessions are focused on your goals as a family. Family sessions can include:
- Psychoeducation
- Role-plays
- Communication Exercises
- Naming problematic dynamics and practicing changing them
- Creating safety for feedback within the family
- Prescribed activities
- Enactments (this means that during session the problematic dynamic appears during the session, giving us an opportunity to address them in real time)
- Humor and opportunities for connection
- Repairs
Are you interested in seeing what one of those psychoeducational activities might include? Check out our connection, break, repair blog!
How Long Does Family Work Take?
How long family work takes depends on your goals! For some clients, it is brief. For instance, there is a narrowly defined goal that takes us a few sessions to achieve. For others, family therapy is part of a consistent practice to keep lines of communication open and address any struggles as soon as they come up.
What Does It Cost?
Private practices often set different prices for family or couples therapy. However, at Cultivating Courage Psychological Services, family sessions costs the same as an individual session.
Are There Different Family Therapy Modalities and How Would I Pick the Best for Me?
Yes! There are many different family therapeutic modalities, here are a few:
Narrative Family Therapy – Focuses on externalizing the problematic behaviors of individuals or the family away from the people. Interestingly, this allows them to address them as a team working towards addressing a problem vs. someone being labeled or treated as a problem. Tools in Narrative Therapy include externalization and re-authoring.
Bowenian Family Therapy – Focuses on the family as a unit and explores multigenerational patterns, triangles with a goal towards a differentiation of self. Common tools in Bowenian Therapy are genograms, I statements, and use of boundaries.
Structural Family Therapy-Looks at in-the-moment interactions to identify patterns through rules, roles, and relationships and make adjustments accordingly. Tools used in Structural Therapy include identifying boundaries, joining, mapping, and enactments.
Integrative Family Therapy – Is a flexible therapy modality that integrates various family and other therapy techniques to address identified maladaptive patterns in the family system. At Cultivating Courage Psychological Services, we often take this approach by utilizing the appropriate therapeutic tools based on a family’s needs.
In addition, other types of family systems models include strategic therapy, emotionally focused therapy, and even focused on specific struggles, like FBT (Maudsley Family Based Treatment) for families supporting loved ones with an eating disorder.
In conclusion, read up on the different family therapeutic modalities and speak to your potential therapist about your family needs. Ultimately, ask for recommendations based on your family’s needs.
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