What is family therapy?
Family therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach whose objective is to modify the inter-family relational dynamics in order to improve them and bring well-being, even to a single person. It is a therapy that sees the family as a true and proper system, taking into account all the parts that compose it and how they relate to each other. Moreover, during the therapy, the psychotherapist does not investigate the causes of the current difficulties, but proposes different patterns of behavior to modify the existing rational dynamics.
When to request a family therapy?
Family therapy is useful when relationships and core dynamics cause discomfort or distress to one or more people in the family system and, given that the parties may try to change the situation, they fail to do so because of the high emotional involvement that constitutes an obstacle to change. This emotional involvement, however, can be very useful if channeled in the right direction. In particular, the problems for which family psychotherapy is resorted to are:
- Parental difficulties in educating their children.
- Difficulties of communication between the members of the nucleus, especially during adolescence.
- Problems between parents (in this case we could resort to couple therapy).
- Difficulty living alone, as may occur especially after retirement.
- Difficulty in overcoming a traumatic event such as a death, accident, abuse, separation,…
- Episodes related to school bullying, eating disorders, adolescent depression, drug or internet addiction.
What is family therapy?
Family therapy aims to transform emotional involvement and all those emotional factors that prevent the correct functioning of the family nucleus into a precious resource to overcome these difficulties. Communication and the contribution of each member are fundamental: members can have confrontations and create situations of distress that, without the help of a therapist, cannot be resolved.