Family therapy or family counseling is designed to address specific issues that affect the psychological health and functioning of the family. Physical illness or Issues such as major life transitions or mental health conditions can place a family at risk for serious distress. Family therapy may be used as the primary mode of treatment or as a complementary approach.
There are many benefits of family counseling. Families can benefit from therapy when they experience a stressful experience that may strain family relationships, such as financial hardship, divorce, or the death of a loved one. In addition, family counseling can be effective in treating mental health concerns that impact the family as a whole, such as depression, addiction, chronic illness, and eating disorders, or even everyday concerns, such as communication problems, interpersonal conflict, or behavioral problems in children and adolescents.
Family counseling aims to promote understanding and collaboration among family members in order to solve family concerns. For example, if a child is having social and academic problems, therapy will focus on the family patterns that may contribute to the child's acting out, rather than evaluating the child's behavior alone. As the family uncovers the source of the problem, they can learn to support the child and other family members and work proactively on minimizing or altering the conditions that contribute to the child's unwanted behavior.
