The way we show up in the world is often informed by our family dynamics. There are times when it is helpful to have a guiding hand to learn to better communicate with and support each other. That is where family therapy comes in. At Positive Mind Wellness, we offer solutions to help families navigate conflict resolution, co-parenting, grief, separation, trauma, and other challenging situations.
What is Family Therapy?
Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that involves two or more family members learning to better understand and communicate with each other. The individuals don’t need to be from the same family or even related at all.
No matter who the participants are, the goal of family therapy is to address counterproductive behaviours, improve conflict resolution, and navigate challenging seasons. This will ultimately help them support each other and move together in unity.
Who Can Benefit from Family Therapy?
Anyone who wants to cope with difficulty as a family unit or who wants to improve their family dynamics can benefit from family therapy. Families working their way through addiction, divorce, grief, illness, mental health issues, unemployment, etc., would benefit from going through therapy together. Below are more detailed examples of the issues we navigate with families.
Parent-teen conflict – It can often seem like parents and teens are talking over each other. Conflict quickly arises when parents who want to be protective are faced with teens who need increasing independence. Family therapy helps both parties empathize with and respect each other. This improves how they communicate with each other and helps them find healthy compromises.
Co-parenting – Children are sometimes raised by parents or caregivers in separate households. This requires a lot of communication and understanding to create a positive atmosphere the child can thrive. We address issues that hinder the creation of such an environment like inconsistent routines, discipline, resentment, emotional unavailability, and the introduction of new partners and family members.
Separation – Separation can happen due to adoption, fostering, divorce, immigration, deportation, incarceration, and other scenarios. Whatever the cause is, it can be highly distressing and leaves the family struggling to fill the gap left by the missing family member. Family therapy helps the family develop coping strategies to meet their needs and build their resilience.
Learning ways to better cope and manage past family traumas – Families often struggle to move past traumas in a positive way. With certain events, like bereavement, there can be an element of blaming each other that hinders any meaningful progress. Other times, family members are not given the opportunity to speak about the trauma. Through therapy, family members are given a platform and opportunity to address the trauma and find a way to move forward together with hope.
Conflict resolution – Many family issues could be addressed with effective conflict resolution. In fact, many family conflicts arise from the inability to address conflicts in a healthy manner. Therapy helps family members discover and correct their unhelpful conflict resolution skills so that problems do not fester and create a negative family environment.
Couples counselling – Healthy relationships need the dedicated effort of both parties to thrive. Couples counselling, also known as marriage and family therapy, helps the couple strengthen their unity and discover areas that need growth. It also helps them navigate through issues affecting their ability to show up for or trust each other like caregiving responsibilities, disability, illness, mental health challenges, and infidelity.
Our Family Therapy Services
Our therapy process begins with the first session, which is the discovery session. The clients and therapist get to discuss the issue at hand and explore approaches the therapist could use. Our therapists use a variety of techniques that they tailor to suit your family. Common approaches that they pull from include anti-oppressive practice, cognitive-behavioural therapy, emotion-focused family therapy, relationship counselling, functional family therapy, structural family therapy, strengths-based perspectives, strategic therapy, systemic therapy, narrative family therapy, transgenerational therapy, psycho-education, and many more.
How Effective is Family Therapy?
Family-based therapy offers several benefits. It helps deepen the bond between family members, even in the case of divorce or separation. It helps them develop skills to proactively deal with challenges rather than merely reacting to them in a maladaptive way. By discovering solutions in a supportive environment, families learn to work together.
Overall, family therapy can help families:
Start with a Complimentary Discovery Session
Families can struggle to understand and communicate effectively with one another. Family therapy helps you bridge the gaps with each other and gives you useful skills to support each other. Get your family the help it needs to better navigate life’s challenges as a team.
To find out more about what this looks like, book a complimentary discovery session with us online or call us.