Understanding the Different Approaches to Family Counselling in Perth

Family is key to a person’s personal development, even if it doesn’t involve blood relatives. These first relationships define many aspects of people’s lives, from when someone is born to their passing.

Furthermore, for better or worse, family affects a person’s habits, customs, vocabulary, and perspectives. How humans view the world around them and work hard to become a new version of themselves is also influenced by their families.

People also learn to love, socialise, interact with others, and react to challenging situations from their relationships with their families.

Those who were born into healthy families are likely to build strong, healthy, and long-lasting bonds with their loved ones. However, a person who grew up in a dysfunctional family often struggles to connect with others.

Fortunately, it is possible to change that situation. Almost all families experience and have to deal with these “dysfunctionality” issues at some point, but most manage to solve them, create a healthy environment, and promote a sense of wholeness.

Families experiencing some sort of dysfunction can rely on family counselling to develop better relationships, protect those bonds they have built over time, and enjoy pure happiness.

What Is Family Counselling?

Also known as family therapy, it’s a treatment that focuses on improving internal relationships to resolve issues affecting a family’s functioning.

Through psychological counselling, family members can learn more about each other and get the tools they need to navigate through difficult situations or major transitions.

In addition, this type of treatment can also help those who encounter difficult experiences due to behavioural health problems in some family members.

Family therapy addresses a person’s problems but doesn’t view them as individual issues but from the perspective of a larger unit.

In other words, it focuses on helping all family members understand that they cannot successfully solve particular issues without considering the dynamics of the entire group.

How Does Family Counselling Work?

Family counselling brings family members together to identify issues and find possible solutions. Therefore, it needs techniques and exercises of cognitive, behavioural, and interpersonal therapy.

The techniques and their effects depend on the specific problems people experience.

As mentioned, this type of treatment doesn’t consider the family as blood relatives only. The term defines any person or group that has played a long-term supportive role in an individual’s life, including adopted parents, foster families, and close-knit neighbourhoods.

Families may need therapy for different reasons. Children’s problems are common. Some couples who have troubled relationships also tend to seek this treatment.

Types of Family Therapy/Counselling

Since it adapts to each person’s or group’s problems and depends on each particular situation, there are different types of family therapy. The following are the most common:

Bowenian

This alternative is ideal for those who don’t want to involve other family members. If they perform bowenian therapy, counsellors focus on the following two concepts:

• Triangulation: It defines people’s tendency to talk to others to vent or distress.
• Differentiation: It helps people learn to be less emotionally reactive within their relationships with their parents, children, or other family members.

Systemic

It focuses on unconscious communication and tries to decipher family members’ behaviours. Unlike other types of therapy, this approach is more neutral, so counsellors are often distant.

Systemic therapy allows family members to dive deeper into their situations to understand different issues and find possible solutions as a group.

Structural

This type of treatment has been designed to adjust and strengthen the family system, ensuring that parents and children can set appropriate boundaries. Additionally, it focuses on helping adults remain in control.

Experts in structural therapy often join the family to observe people’s behaviour and learn more about them. After this process, the specialist defines strategies to help members strengthen their relationships.

Strategic

It’s performed through “homework,” with activities designed to assess and improve the way family members communicate and make decisions.

Through these activities, the therapist identifies the root cause of the family issues to find potential solutions. In addition, they often take a position of power to allow people with less power to communicate effectively within the group.

What Is the Role of Family Therapists?

Based on these types, a family therapist or counsellor may have different roles. Therefore, they must be experienced in several fields, including the following:

• Grieving
• Child and adolescent behavioural problems
• Infertility
• LGBTQ issues
• Domestic violence
• Depression and anxiety
• Substance abuse
• Marital conflicts

In this regard, family therapists must observe how each person interacts within the unit, assess relationship problems, and offer solutions for those issues.

Moreover, counsellors can diagnose psychological disorders within a family context, help people swap dysfunctional behaviours for healthy alternatives, identify problematic relational patterns, and guide family members through transitional crises.

Family therapists must also complete different education programs and annual courses in order to provide the right treatment to their clients. Overall, they are trained to address multiple aspects, including the following:

• Divorce or separation
• Personal conflicts between couples
• Personal conflicts between families
• Children’s behavioural problems
• Healthy romantic relationship development
• Addiction and substance abuse
• Mental health problems and how to cope with them as a unit

What Are The Goals of Family Counselling?

To sum up, the main goal of family counselling is to motivate family members to work together to identify mental, emotional, or psychological issues that may affect their relationships and find an effective way to heal.

In addition, through family counselling, therapists also improve communication and deeply analyse families’ situations in order to solve problems and create a better and healthier functioning environment.

However, family therapy can have different goals, and each one depends on people’s problems or specific situations. In simple terms, each goal may differ depending on each scenario.

If a person suffers from schizophrenia or another mental disorder, for example, the therapist would help family members understand the condition and adjust to the psychological changes that the patient experiences.

Instead, for families deviating from social norms, the therapy’s goal is not only to solve specific internal problems. Since this form of counselling has been designed for families with unmarried parents or gay couples raising children, for example, it addresses societal attitudes.

Blended families may also face unique issues depending on their situations. Therefore, in these cases, therapists focus on helping family members better understand their role in the unit and facilitating healthy interactions.

Sometimes, family therapy also addresses issues involving people who have their individual treatment undermined. If the patient receives limited support during therapy, the counsellor’s goal is to help the family members develop empathy.

Counselling can also help family members understand others’ needs in order to provide support to the individual requiring treatment during this process.

Are Family Therapy and Family Counselling the Same Thing?

While both terms can be used interchangeably, therapy is more in-depth and can be a long-term treatment. It also allows people to discuss a broader range of issues or address chronic patterns when there are problematic feelings, behaviours, or thoughts.

Instead, counselling defines those situations in which a person seeks help from a mental health professional to solve specific issues or a set of problems.

Families going through difficult situations that bring a lot of stress or experiencing a transition crisis, such as the death of another family member, can benefit from counselling. The same is true for those facing financial straits or addiction issues.

However, when families struggle with serious behavioural problems or chronic mental issues, psychotherapy may be a better choice. Those who need professional help dealing with a parent with schizophrenia might fall into this category, for example. It’s also the best alternative when a family member is abused or diagnosed with depression.

Essentially, both family counselling and family therapy are based on how a family member’s behaviour or struggles can affect others and alter the dynamics of the group.

A father with an alcohol addiction would likely affect his partner and children. However, a therapist or counsellor can help the whole family address this problem and find possible solutions at the whole family level rather than following an individual approach.

Benefits of Family Therapy

Mental health professionals can help families identify and work on their problems effectively in a controlled environment. In this regard, family therapy takes a holistic approach and treats the issues of a group, allowing involved parties to enjoy these benefits:

• Improve communication with others
• Have a better understanding of family dynamics and patterns
• Set, understand, and respect healthy boundaries
• Improve problem-solving skills
• Reduce conflict
• Develop more empathy
• Acquire better anger management skills

In addition, family therapy can get the following results:

• Help families develop trust
• Help families overcome crises and bring them together
• Reduce stress and tension sources
• Help family members forgive each other
• Encourage honesty among family members
• Bring back family members who have drifted away
• Resolve conflicts between family members

Family therapy can enhance family functioning, provide members with tools to facilitate healing, and improve the group’s abilities to address and overcome different problems.

6 Techniques and Exercises for Family Therapy

These techniques and exercises are great for family therapy. Ideally, they should be used in a therapeutic working relationship context, but those who aren’t ready to seek professional help may also consider them.

1. The Miracle Question: This exercise allows people to recognise their own dreams and desires and explore the future they hope to build.
2. Emotions Ball: This exercise allows people to discuss their emotions with their family members and understand how others feel, practising expression and listening.
3. Coloured Candy Go Around: It’s an icebreaker or introduction to therapy, especially if children are involved.
4. Mirroring Activity: It’s a fun exercise that allows family members to bond with each other. Also, it’s great to encourage people to work together and cooperate with one another.
5. The Family Gift: Overall, this exercise allows the therapist to get to know the family better. However, it’s also a great activity for those without the guidance of a mental health professional, as it allows family members to assess how they make a decision and look at their inner workings.
6. Genogram: It’s a graphic representation of people’s family tree, but it considers other details, such as medical conditions in the group, emotional relationships, and blood relations. Therefore, this exercise is great for identifying patterns in family history or how certain behaviours have affected family dynamics.

Different Approaches to Family Counselling in Perth Conclusion

Understanding the Different Approaches to Family Counselling in Perth can help you move forward when your having issues. Through family therapy, you and your relatives can learn to build and maintain healthy relationships, work together to solve problems and communicate or express your emotions effectively.

As a result, family members can heal, relieve stress or other negative emotions that affect them on a daily basis, overcome crises, and deal with difficult experiences.

Are you looking for family counselling in Perth? Energetics Institute’s expert team can help you create better and healthier relationships with other family members. Contact us today!