For poor or rich, for better or worse, in sickness and health, people receive more from their families than their genetic make-up. Each person in a family is knit together with every other.
People’s families shape their values, behaviors, and feelings. Whether people want to follow everything they learned from their family or whether they want to distance themselves from their family, a family is the context for knowing a person.
Families can be wonderful when everyone contributes and everyone receives. But life does not always work like that. Achieving that balance is hard, and sometimes, it can feel impossible. Here are only a handful of ways life can knock families off balance:
- Indifference or hostility has grown up between family members.
- Parents who disagree on how to raise the children, and children who are confused and experience behavior problems.
- One family member’s anger is taking its toll on other family members.
- Poor or no communication has resulted in hurt feelings and/or distance.
- A harmful family pattern of behavior is repeating over and over again.
Every family will face challenges that knock it off balance. That is normal. It is also normal to need an outside perspective to regain equilibrium. Family therapy has helped many family systems by helping each individual member.
Family therapy through Thriveworks Cedar Park is designed to support families through life’s challenges. Our therapists know that it is possible for families to face their problems together and grow more tight-knight along the way.
Could Therapy Help Your Family?
The two most well-utilized techniques for family counseling are family structural therapy and family systems therapy. These focus upon how a family offers each member comfort, sets expectations, copes with stress, and defines their values. The foundational idea is that these functions shape each family member’s life. People may react against their family and try to distance themselves. People may love their families and try to emulate everything they learned in their family. In either case, the family of origin is the context to understand the individual.
Understanding how the family functions can help families understand each individual member. Understanding can lead to more unity and peace. When families understand each member, they may begin to work together. To achieve this understanding, therapists may also explore each individual’s personality type, birth order, and/or love language.
The aim of family therapy is interdependence. That is, each family member is their own individual, and their unique needs and talents are respected. But at the same time, individual family members can work together, support each other, and receive the care they need.
Strong families are comprised of strong individuals. Strong individuals are often supported by strong families. Healthy, interdependent families usually experience many benefits, including…
- Less risk of poverty as parents share income potential.
- More comfort and emotional connection between family members.
- Better attachments between children and parents (and children may continue with these relational skills in their adulthood relationships).
- Less risk of depression and anxiety disorders.
- Greater life coping skills for hardship, stress, and challenge.
- Fewer cases of abuse and/or neglect.
When Is the Right Time for Family Therapy?
What challenges is your family facing? Have multiple people in the family been affected? Will the way forward also affect multiple people? If yes, then consider family therapy. It may be the safe place your family needs to work through the challenge together. Here are a few situations families have faced together with the support of a family therapist:
- Hormonal changes in parents or adolescents that may be leading to conflict.
- Inadequate or no premarital counseling and/or marriage maintenance counseling
- Abuse, neglect, and/or addiction
- Overbearing parenting style that results in rebellious children
- Lax parenting style that results in out-of-control children
- A special-needs family member with unequally distributed care
- Family members with unmet needs
- Tension/strain in spousal, parent/child, and/or in-law relationships
- Crises such as death of a loved one, job loss, loss of the family’s home, or illness/injury
- A marriage lacking intimacy
These challenges do not have an easy-fix or a magic formula that will quickly make life easier. But with time, empathy, and humility, families can learn to work together.
Scheduling Family Therapy at Thriveworks Cedar Park, TX
No family is perfect. Every family has challenges, but not every challenge leads to distance. With the right support and guidance, many families grow together through challenges. That is why Thriveworks Cedar Park provides family therapy. We love seeing families overcome life’s disruptions, and we want to help.
When you schedule an appointment at our office, you can make an evening or weekend appointment. A scheduling specialist will answer your call and make an appointment for you, possibly even within 24 hours. We also accept many forms of insurance. Let’s get started. Call today.
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