Mental Health 101: Family Therapy

Family therapy is when a family talks with a licensed therapist who is trained to help them work through their issues. Instead of just considering one person’s experience, the therapist considers how the whole family interacts and how their relationships affect each other. Your therapist will help support the family as a unit, guiding you all to improve communication, solve problems, and generally get along better, together.

Family therapy can help with things like: 

• Communication problems
• Conflicts between family members
• Big changes, like divorce or moving
• Coping with loss or illness 

Family therapy can include all members of your family living with you, including young children and grandparents.

Reasons to Try Family Therapy

Families might decide to try therapy for many reasons. Here are some common ones: 

• Communication Issues: If family members aren’t talking to each other or misunderstand each other a lot, therapy can help everyone learn to communicate more clearly.
• Constant Arguing: If your family seems to argue all the time and can’t find a way to stop resolution, therapy can help you figure out what’s causing the fights and how to manage disagreements better.
• Big Life Changes: Events like moving, parents separating, or the loss of a loved one can be hard for the whole family. Therapy can help you handle these changes together and support each other. 
• Behavior Problems: Problems like a child having trouble at school or a teenager being rebellious. Therapy can help the family understand what’s going on and how to support that person. 

What to Expect

If you’ve never been to family therapy before, here’s what you can expect: 

• Your First Session: In the first session, your therapist will ask questions to get to know everyone in the family. They’ll want to hear about what’s been going on, how everyone feels and what you hope to achieve in therapy.
• Talking About Problems: During each session, the family will talk about what’s bothering them. Your therapist will make sure everyone has a chance to speak and share their thoughts. The goal is to help family members understand each other’s feelings and viewpoints.
• Learning New Skills: Your therapist will teach your family new ways to solve problems, talk to each other and handle disagreements. These skills can help everyone work together and improve relationships.
• Working as a Team: Family therapy is all about working as a team. Everyone in the family will be involved in finding solutions and your therapist is there to guide the process and help keep things therapeutic. 

Family therapy can help improve communication, solve conflicts and bring your family closer together. Whether your family is dealing with arguments, stress or big changes, therapy can be a helpful tool to work through these issues as a team. Schedule a visit with a First Stop Health mental health provider to get started!