Many therapists take a best fit approach to therapy depending on the needs of their clients. The client’s life experiences can inform the direction of the therapy.
Looking back can be necessary to address what is happening now. I am thinking of unresolved trauma, insecure attachment and depression, to name a few situations in which the past may impact the present. Family therapy is not usually that kind of a process.
Family therapists are focused on what is happening with the family now, not in the past. One of the most compelling differences in family therapy is the perspective that the family is an open system. Open because new parts can enter the system when there is a need for emotional escape.
An example of how other people or even pets can become part of the system is when one member has an affair to create distance from the intense emotion of a marriage in trouble. In family therapy this is recognized as triangulation, which is a key concept when treating the family as a whole.
The most common symbol of family in psychological terms is a hanging mobile. If any part of the mobile is touched, all the parts will move.
The family dynamic is such that what happens in the system affects all members of the family. Of course, the complexity is in the ways each family member is impacted and how that shapes their interactions with others in the family system. The interactions between the members of the family form the context for the therapy.
Family therapy takes the focus off one person who is acting out in a way that concerns other family members. It is not uncommon for some members of the family system to resist participating in the family process.
“I am not the one who has the problem. Why should I have to go to therapy?”
The family therapist observes the interactions between the family members to identify issues within the family. This is referred to as interlocking pathologies.
In this way, all family members are the client of the family therapist with each one having issues stemming from interactions between members. In other words, the problematic behaviours within the family are the product of how they communicate with each other.
When a marriage begins to break down and communication becomes negative, both verbally and nonverbally, it is not uncommon for the child/children to become anxious and/or their school performance to drop. This is an example of interlocking pathologies.
Family therapy makes sense when the whole family is experiencing the fallout of negative behaviours. The tendency is to identify one person in the family as the cause of the issues. The family system as a whole is suffering with multiple overlapping issues that are triangulated and reactive to negative feedback. Without holistic intervention, the family continues to suffer.
Deborah Joyce is a registered psychotherapist with a practice in Powell River and Comox Valley. Questions can be forwarded to her through the Peak.
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