When communication in the family is off and conflicts are piling up, family therapy can be useful. Whether it’s problems raising a child or conflict between parents causing stress at home. An experienced therapist can unravel the spiral of frustrations and work with the family to find possible solutions.
What is family therapy?
Because of their shared life situation and history, family therapists view the family as a social system and place it at the center of psychological intervention. Family therapy is a psychological process to uncover and resolve problems between individual members of a family. If there are illnesses in individual family members due to tense relationships within the family, family therapy also serves to heal these psychologically caused ailments. During sessions, the therapist strives for positive changes in behavior between members. In doing so, they are made to understand that the family system can only function if everyone shows understanding and respect for each other. This acceptance of other members should also be reflected on a communicative level.
Function, effect and goals
Family therapy can be an appropriate method when individual members suffer from mental disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. Family therapy treatments are especially common in child and adolescent psychiatry. Family therapists assume that, for example, the healing of an eating disordered child is more effective when the parents are included in the therapy and that the affected person is less likely to relapse. But therapy can also be the solution for children with AD(H)S symptomatology (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) or those who are otherwise perceived as difficult. The same is true for depressive states of a family member or for experiences of addiction or violence. But also in the case of a separation of the parents, a reappraisal can be helpful for the family in coping with the conflict. Often the entire family suffers from conflicts that seem to affect the partners alone. So in cases of infidelity or underlying misunderstandings between the parents, family therapy can also lead to success. But how does family therapy work? What methods does the therapist use to achieve his or her goals? A family therapist sees the family as a system in which the interactions between the family members are of great importance. He starts with these interactions. He approaches the core of the underlying problem in conversations with the members and points out problematic behaviors. He gives suggestions and helps the family to work out solutions in the form of alternative courses of action. The goal is to work through and overcome social conflicts. This should improve communication both in the partnership and in the family. The aim is to develop strategies with which daily stressful situations can be better managed. The therapy aims to make the people involved see faulty behavior. This means that the therapy participants have to take a self-critical look at themselves and, if necessary, discard certain negative behaviors that put a strain on family life. In family therapy, three methods are distinguished. The psychoanalytic, the humanistic and the systemic therapy. In the psychoanalytic method, researchers assume that mental illnesses come about as a result of problematic family relationships, which may also stem from previous generations. Thus, the therapist analyzes the interactions between family members and the defense structures of each family member. In the humanistic therapy method, the experience of the affected person in the here and now is the focus of the treatment. The so-called family constellation is used. Metaphors, trance, mediation and family sculptures are used here. These figures stand in for individual family members and an attempt is made to use these sculptures to recognize and revise behavior patterns. Systemic family therapy, which is widely used today, combines elements of both currents. In addition to these basics for working through family conflicts, methods of communication psychology are also used in the session.Here, participants practice nonviolent communication, conflict management, and de-escalation strategies. Who offers family therapy? First and foremost, psychotherapists and psychologists. But families can also find support from institutional providers, for example in educational counseling centers.
Risks, side effects and dangers
As far as family constellations are concerned, many therapeutic successes have already been achieved. Especially in the treatment of mentally ill children, where the behavior of the parents played a role in the development of the disease. In most cases, the therapy is free of side effects or low-risk. However, there are also critical voices that consider the family constellation as a threat to the participants. In order for the consequences to be tolerable for them, it is necessary to engage an experienced, well-trained psychotherapist. Healers with poor training and strong esoteric traits can do more harm than good. Normal side effects of family therapy can be: Aggression against individual family members, autoaggression, depressive moods. Then it is important that the therapist catches the patient with his expertise, moderates his aggression or other strong emotions. If necessary, a session must be broken off. A good therapist must reckon with the fact that the findings of a constellation can be an enormous burden for the individual patient and can trigger negative psychological reactions. However, if the patient is made to feel guilty about a serious physical illness, which allegedly arose due to a wrong behavior towards the conflict partner, this person should definitely turn to another therapist. This is because: the goal of family therapy should be to help people follow the path that is right for them and not to make them dependent on extremist teachings of one individual. The patient should always remain autonomous in his or her decision and not be manipulated. In the case of an inculcated guilt complex by bad therapists, there is a risk of acute suicide. It is therefore important to choose a therapist who works with gentler treatment methods.
