Love is a constant process of tuning in, connecting, missing and misreading cues, disconnecting, repairing, and finding deeper connection.
It is a dance of meeting and parting and finding each other again. Minute to minute and day to day.
Dr Sue Johnson
Oftentimes, one individual’s difficulties can be closely related to ineffective interactional patterns within their family, or emotional distancing from other family members. At such times, the engagement of the family in therapy would not only benefit the individual, but the dynamics within the whole family simultaneously. This outcome would then likely have a cascading effect by positively impacting every family member and the relationships between the family members long term.
Who can benefit from family therapy?
There are many families that can benefit from family therapy, and too many scenarios to enlist. Therefore, only a couple of the most common scenarios are illustrated below.
When parents and children do not get along any longer, and find it difficult to communicate, then we distance from each other emotionally and engage into ineffective patterns of communication, if any. Yet we need to feel loved and accepted by our loved ones in order to thrive. The void left by emotional disconnection can fill everyone with emptiness and loneliness, and leave some of us vulnerable to mental illness.
At other times, something outside the family may compete for time and resources with the other family members. For example, an addiction, or work, or studying. When this happens, this “something” becomes like a third party and can come between the individual and the family. By working together, the family has more power to deal with this third party, compared to the power that an individual can exert on their own. The therapy process typically brings the whole family closer together.
Do you believe that your family would benefit from family therapy?
If so, email Claudia to book. If in doubt and you have questions, then briefly explain the difficulties that your family faces, so that she can then advise in which ways she can help, and the scaffolding of what therapy would likely look like.