Family Therapy
What is family therapy?
Family therapy is based on the belief that individuals can not be understood in isolation from one another, but rather as a part of their family. The family is a unique social system with its own structure and patterns of communication. Many factors determine these patterns, including parents' values, personalities of all family members, influence of the extended family (grandparents, uncles, aunts).
Family therapy is becoming an increasingly common form of treatment as changes in our society are reflected in family structures. The main concept is that a person’s symptoms takes place in the larger context of the family. On one hand, psychological malaise of a member is due to family tensions. On the other hand, any change in one member affects the family structure, causing anxiety and stress.
When is it useful?
Family psychotherapy is relationship-oriented. It is often a short term therapy focused on solving specific problems by changing the way the family system works. All members play an active role in the therapeutic process.
A full range of relationship or psychological problems can be addressed via a family therapy approach. Indications include:
- parents conflict within their relationship
- child/adolescent manifesting symptoms, behavior or school problems
- chronic illness of one family member, including also an alcohol use problem, severe depression or eating problems
- stressful event involving all the family, as death, divorce, financial loss, job loss.
How can it help you?
Family therapy is suitable for helping both families and individual family members. The purposes are:
- teaching family members about how their family functions
- helping the family to focus less on the member who has been identified as ill and focus more on the family as a whole
- identifying conflicts and anxieties and helping the family develop strategies to resolve them
- enhancing family strengths to handle conflicts
- teaching better ways to interact with each others
Family therapy is useful in dealing with relationship problems. It can also be helpful to anticipate a major change in families’ lives. For example, a new relationship between man and woman with children from previous marriages may benefit from a family therapy helping all members to learn how to live together
Find a Therapist
Dr Emanuela Molinari is our specialist family therapist.