Family therapy helps family members improve:
- communication and connection in the family
- resolve conflicts, and/or
- address specific issues such as a parent-child issue, grief, substance abuse, or the effect of a mental illness on the family.
Family counseling can help you and your family members understand one another better and bring you closer together. Similar to what happens in couples counseling, in family therapy the therapist helps identify problems underlying the family’s functioning and guides the family to healthier functioning. There is often a focus on learning effective conflict resolution skills, emotional regulation skills, and healthy communication skills.
While a family therapy session generally includes all members of the family present, your therapist may at times see individual members or groups within the family separately as a part of family therapy.