What is Family Therapy?

We all start this life with a family and as the years pass we start to expand our family from our family of origin to the family we choose. The term “family” does not necessarily mean blood relatives. In this context, “family” is anyone who plays a long-term supportive role in one’s life, which may not mean blood relations or family members in the same household.

Our family of origin, the family that we acquire when we are born, influences every aspect of our lives, from our first moments to our last. Our family affects who we are and who we become, for better and for worse. We also learn how to love, how we work with emotion and how to interact with others from these first important relationships. Family therapy is designed to address specific issues affecting the health and functioning of a family. It can be used to help a family through a difficult period, a major transition, or mental or behavioral health problems in family members. 

Family therapy views individuals’ problems in the context of the larger unit, the “family”. The assumption in family therapy is that problems cannot be successfully addressed or solved without understanding the dynamics of the group. The way the family operates influences how the individual’s problems had formed and how they are encouraged or enabled by other members of their family. Often times, Family Therapy can be helpful as an addition to Individual Therapy. For example, a teen or adult child in Individual Therapy, can then schedule a Family Therapy session with the parent to work through their concerns together, or to bring a family ally to help their individual goals.

There is no such thing as a perfect family. Nearly all families deal with some sort of dysfunction at one time or another, yet most families retain or regain a sense of wholeness and happiness. Family therapy offers families a way to do this—a way to develop or maintain a healthy, functional family system.