If you and your loved ones have been having trouble communicating, your therapist may have suggested family therapy. Do you worry that the therapist will “nail” you as a terrible parent? Do you have high hopes that the therapist will be able to “fix” your kid or spouse? If the therapist performs their job well, neither of those things should be expected from family therapy.
So, what can you expect?
First, be sure that the therapist you choose has expertise working with families. Without specialized education or expertise in family therapy, several generalists have set up shop and claim to treat any comers. It would help if you had something else, and that’s not it. For severe diseases like cancer and diabetes, you should see a specialist, not a family doctor. Similarly, you wouldn’t take your family to a general practitioner for medical care. Family therapy is a unique field that requires expertise and training beyond individual psychotherapy. A family like yours is priceless. That’s why it’s essential to choose a family therapy New York that specializes in working with families and has plenty of experience.
Second, you should depend on your family therapist to view the situation from a macro level. They’ll take a holistic view of your family and work with you as a unit. Intervening constructively in families is central to family therapy. Both the person and their social contexts are considered.
Third, rather than diagnosing someone in particular, a family therapist would likely look at how everyone in the family interacts with one another rather than focusing on the identified patient. Families sometimes seek treatment with the expectation that the therapist would “fix” one person they’ve singled out as the source of their problems. In my experience, it is not how family therapy is supposed to go. The therapist’s job is to help the family as a whole, so they’ll look at how everyone gets along and communicates with one another. The therapist may achieve this by soliciting input from everyone in the family.
Fourth, the family therapist will likely focus on the positive aspects of the situation. While you may have decided to seek therapy to address what you see as an issue, it’s important to remember that your loved ones are more than just that. Your family therapist should assist you in identifying and mobilizing your family’s strengths and internal resources.
Fifth, you may count on your family therapist to draw out and validate your feelings. A significant tenet of family therapy is the concept of state-dependent learning or the belief that individuals learn most effectively about emotions when experiencing those feelings themselves. Emotions have a significant role in both family dynamics and the therapeutic process. They should not be disregarded. They must be unearthed, instead. When making positive changes in one’s family, the emotional realm is ground zero.
Sixth, the family therapist will listen intently to your narratives and will be on the lookout for any distinctive conclusions that might be drawn. The self-narratives we tell ourselves have the potential to be either restricting or liberating. The family therapist will question restrictive narratives and encourage the development of more positive ones.
Finally, you can anticipate that the family therapist will share your goal of higher family efficiency. Family therapy at the Integrative Therapy Center focuses on the difficulty of getting clients back to normal life.
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