What Is Family Therapy?

Family therapy is a type of treatment designed to help with issues that specifically affect families' mental health and functioning. It can help individual family members build stronger relationships, improve communication, and manage conflicts within the family system.

Some of the primary goals of family therapy are to create a better home environment, solve family issues, and understand the unique issues that a family might face.

What Family Therapy Can Help With

Family therapy can help people with many different issues. Some of these include:

• Behavioral problems in children or teens
• Changes within the family 
• Communication problems
• Divorce, separation, or marital problems
• Parent-child conflicts
• Problems between siblings
• Parenting issues
• Stressful events or major life transitions
• Trauma

This type of therapy can also address individual mental health problems that can affect the entire family, such as anxiety, chronic illness, depression, and substance use.

Benefits of Family Therapy

Because this form of treatment addresses communication, family members can learn how to better share their thoughts and needs and resolve conflicts in a way that is less likely to damage relationships.

This type of therapy also focuses on how family members can address an individual family member’s difficulties. For example, if one family member has a mental health condition, family therapy can help alter some conditions that sometimes contribute to the problem.

Things to Consider

Because family therapy involves talking about emotional problems and conflicts, it can be difficult and upsetting. In some cases, people may initially feel worse before they begin to improve. It is important to remember that a professional therapist is there to help members of the family work through these conflicts and handle the intense emotions that people may experience.

How to Get Started

Family therapy is often short-term, but it may also take place for a year or longer, depending on the situation and needs of the family. While it frequently involves all family unit members, it may also focus on those who are willing or able to participate in treatment. 

During therapy sessions, the therapist will ask questions to learn more about the problems that have brought the family to therapy. They will also look at other factors contributing to issues, such as underlying mental health conditions and environmental stress.