This answer often looks different to each family that starts family therapy. However, some signs that your family might need to consider family counseling include frequent fights or misunderstandings, constant tension, experiencing loss, behavioral issues, marital issues, divorce, and blended family issues, among others.
In family therapy, therapists will often start by asking questions and assessing individual and family dynamics. From there, they may employ therapeutic techniques such as structured family therapy, CBT, strategic family therapy, and more depending on the present concerns and conflicts. From there, a therapist will work to open lines of communication between family members and facilitate emotional healing and growth.
There is so much to unravel in Mother Teresa’s statement, “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” Most of us love our families dearly, but we still make a lot of mistakes and inadvertently contribute to conflict.
In families, it’s common to act out when something is wrong instead of addressing the problem directly. A sudden onset of bad behavior in a child can be the proverbial canary in the coalmine for a larger family conflict. Families are complicated! They are one unit, but they’re also made up of diverse, complex individuals. When trouble arises—or even before it does—family therapists can help.
Thriveworks therapists in Minneapolis, MN, can work with you and your family members to help repair conflicts and address past, present, and future challenges.
5 Modalities of Family Therapy
Most marriage and family therapists (MFTs) recognize five main modalities of family therapy. A Thriveworks family therapist in Minneapolis, MN, might have expertise in a range of modalities, but they will help choose the one that’s best for you.
- Structural therapy, which considers the role each member plays in the family
- Milan therapy, which sees the body as a system guided by natural behavior
- Strategic therapy, which attempts to examine and redirect patterns of behavior
- Narrative therapy, which focuses on individuals
- Transgenerational therapy, which looks at conflicts from a generational standpoint
How Does Family Therapy Treatment Work?
Family therapy usually looks something like this:
- You notice something is “off” in your family dynamic. Maybe one person is acting out and others are reacting badly, creating an ugly emotional loop. Maybe someone is feeling depressed or withdrawing from the family, and it’s affecting everyone’s mental wellbeing. Whatever the case may be, a red flag has gone up over the family home.
- You try to fix the problem yourself, but you can’t. It seems like you’re just making things worse. Maybe there’s too much emotion involved. Maybe you’re too close to the problem. Or maybe you simply don’t have the expertise to tackle the issue. That’s okay! A whole mental health profession exists for this reason.
- You schedule a family therapy session with a counselor at your convenience.
- The counselor listens to all family members and asks relevant, insightful questions to get to the root of the problem.
- The family counselor advises you on the best course of action. The therapist may want to meet individually with family members in one-on-one sessions, or treat the family as a whole. It depends on what the conflict is. You may do online counseling, in-person counseling, or a mixture of both.
- You work to resolve the conflict and walk away with better communication tools in your tool belt for future conflicts. The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy reports that family therapy is usually brief and “solution-focused,” making it hugely effective, reporting a success rate of almost 90 percent.
And it’s not unusual for one, or even a few, members of a family to continue individual counseling after completing family therapy with Thriveworks in Minneapolis, MN.
How Can Family Therapy Help My Family?
Family therapy can help your family in numerous tangible and intangible ways. You can learn better coping or communication skills. You can learn how your own behavioral patterns might affect those you love.
And there are countless reasons why you might seek out a family therapist. Your family might have specific issues that members are trying to deal with. These can include marital or financial problems. But anything can influence or alter the psychological health of your family. Examples include:
- Substance abuse by one or several family members
- A child’s academic problems
- A child bullying others or being bullied
- Sexual abuse
- Food issues
- Communication issues
- Chronic illness
- Time conflicts
By reaching out to a Thriveworks family therapist in Minneapolis, MN, you and your family members can begin to piece together the resources and solutions to address whatever might be amiss under your roof. These lessons from therapy can last a lifetime, and help to bring you all closer.
Schedule a Session with a Family Therapist at Thriveworks in Minneapolis
Health insurance can cover the cost of family therapy, and treatment is more affordable and convenient than ever due to improvements in secure telehealth technology. It can be hard to get all your family members together in one place at the same time, but online counseling definitely makes it easier. Your counselor can work with disparate schedules to arrange convenient appointment times. Call Thriveworks in Minneapolis, MN, to schedule your first session with a counselor specializing in family dynamics and family therapy.
When you enroll with Thriveworks, you get the added bonus of your clinician’s advice by phone and email, exclusive video content, community discussion, and our mobile app Therapy Buddy. Everyone in your family can benefit from same- or next-day appointments and our flexible cancellation policy. And our clinicians start on time! Make an appointment today.
