What is Family Counselling?

Hi everyone, and thanks for stopping by the Center Street Psychology blog! If this is the first time you’ve joined us, click back through the archives to read posts on attachment styles, communication tips, and goal setting. With this weekend being Family Day weekend, we are focusing on family counselling and some information that might be helpful to know before getting started!

What does family counselling look like? There are several different schools of thought and approaches when it comes to family therapy. We’ll share about three of them. The first is, Systemic family therapy suggests the family is one unit, and each person’s actions affect both the other people in the family as well as the family as a whole; it examines processes and influences and focuses on improving family interactions. Secondly, Structural family therapy proposes that behavioural and emotional dysregulation in children/youth is related to unhealthy family structures; treatment focuses on understanding and developing boundaries, recognizing subsystems within the family and how they affect interactions, and enhancing/building up relationships between family members. Lastly, Narrative family therapy helps people see and understand their story. It provides context to the stories of other family members from a different point of view, while breaking down experiences and interactions into smaller pieces, so that it is easier to identify patterns and emotions. Narrative family therapy also supports clients in externalizing, which is a way to create distance between people and their concerns to differentiate between having a problem and being a problem.

What types of concerns can be addressed in family therapy? The short answer is anything! The longer answer is that family therapy can help people work through things that affect themselves and others in the family. This can include:

· Strengthening communication and conflict resolution skills

· Discussing financial concerns

· Life transitions such as a child leaving the home, parents divorcing, or parents remarrying/blending families

· Medical diagnoses that impact family functioning (such as cancer, degenerative diseases like ALS, or mental health conditions)

· Grief and loss

· Addictions/substance use

Want to know more?

· The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy has a podcast with episodes that address a variety of topics

· This https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/marriage-and-family-therapy

Goodreads list has a compilation of books that are related to marriage and family therapy (some may be more clinical leaning than others)

Please reach out to us at Center Street Psychology, as we provide uniquely tailored therapeutic plans and interventions to support you and your family in collaborating on your personal goals. We are an inclusive clinic, located in Calgary, Alberta that provides in-person and virtual psychological services across Canada in the evenings and weekends. Please text or call 403-399-5120 to talk to our Director of Client Care, Amy, who will guide you through the intake process.

Written by: Lindsay Mcnena