In a family, every individual is interconnected with every other individual, for better or worse. Families pass down from generation to generation patterns of emotional processing, social behavior, and ethical standards. Whether they love their family of origin or whether they are reacting to it, people are often best understood in the context of their family.
Families often flourish when each member contributes and each member has their needs met, but achieving this balance can be harder than anticipated. Life can easily knock families off equilibrium. Here are just a few examples of challenges that families frequently face:
- One family member is experiencing frustration or anger that affects other family members.
- You or your spouse cannot agree on parenting styles, and your children are experiencing behavior problems.
- Family members are cold and apathetic toward one another.
- A family pattern is hurting a family member over and over again.
- Hurt feelings have resulted from poor or lack of communication.
When families are knocked off balance, an outside perspective may help re-establish healthy ways of connection. Family therapy attempts to help families understand the challenges that threaten their family’s equilibrium and how to make adjustments that benefit each individual member and the family as a whole.
Thriveworks Georgetown offers family therapy because we know that every family needs support along the way. Our counselors have helped many families work through their challenges and re-establish balance.
Why Pursue Family Therapy?
The central idea of family therapy is that people’s identities, behaviors, and beliefs are formed in their families of origin, and therefore, individuals are most fully known in the context of their family.
Family systems therapy and family structural therapy are the most common methods for family therapy, and they assert that how a family copes with stress, sets expectations, offers comfort, and defines each individual’s role has significant implications in a person’s life. To understand how these play out in a family’s life, therapists may explore each member’s birth order, love language, and/or personality type. Understanding each individual better and understanding how individuals relate to each other may allow the family as a whole to function more harmoniously.
When families communicate well and when they experience interdependence, they often flourish. Strong families bring many benefits to their members and to the community, including:
- Decreased risk of poverty (when parents share income potential)
- More secure attachments can be formed between children and parents (and children may carry these healthy relational skills into their adulthood relationships).
- Increased emotional connection and comfort from family
- Increased ability to handle stress and hardship
- Reduced risk of anxiety disorders and depression-related conditions.
- Reduced instances of abuse, neglect, or problems with the law.
Working It Out Together
What is your family going through right now? Are multiple people adding to the dynamic (either positively or negatively)? Are multiple people affected by the dynamic? If so, then family therapy may be helpful.
Here are a handful of reasons families have chosen to work through their challenge together in therapy:
- Hormonal changes in a teen or parent that may be leading to conflict
- Insufficient premarital counseling and/or marriage maintenance counseling
- A family member with special needs who has an unequally distributed burden of care
- Abuse, neglect, and/or addiction
- Overbearing parenting choices that result in rebellious children
- Lax parenting choices that result in out-of-control children
- Intimacy difficulties in the marriage relationship
- An individual family member with unmet needs
- Tension/strain in spousal, parent/child, or in-law relationships
- Times of particular stress such as job loss or death of a loved one
The problems that many families face do not have quick fixes or silver bullets, but they do have solutions if each family member is ready to do their part. Family therapy may be the safe place your family needs to acknowledge an unhealthy pattern, listen to one another, and find a more balanced path forward.
Thriveworks Georgetown Offers Family Therapy
The therapist at Thriveworks Georgetown aim to help families find practical solutions to life’s biggest challenges. We understand that staying together as a family is hard and that regaining balance after life throws a curveball is important. We also understand how …
- The challenge is the challenge—not the family or individuals who seek help for the problem.
- Empathy, listening, and connecting can ease many family tensions.
- Each person in a family needs a voice.
- There are workable compromises to every challenge.
If you are ready work through life’s challenges as a family, then Thriveworks Georgetown is here to help. When you call our office, a person will help schedule your appointment. Many clients see their therapist the next business day, and we offer weekend and evening appointments. We also accept many insurance plans.
Being a family can be challenging, but finding the right balance is worth the effort. Call Thriveworks Georgetown, TX today for family therapy.
