Considering family therapy? Before you start, it’s important to understand what to expect. Family therapy can transform relationships, improve communication, and help you navigate challenges together. Here are five key things to know before beginning your journey.
1. It can change your relationships.
Doing family therapy can change the way you communicate with your family members, including the way you engage in arguments and the ways in which you express your support. Doing therapy together is a good way to learn how to see your family members for who they truly are, and interact with them in ways that feel most authentic to everyone.
2. The most impactful thing you can do to support your family is getting to know yourself.
This means growing your ability to self-reflect, building skills to work with your own emotions, and being aware of how you impact others. Taking care of yourself and your emotions FIRST is NOT selfish. By doing this, you are taking the responsibility away from your partner/child/parent of having to monitor and take care of how you are feeling, which can lift an enormous emotional weight off of those around you.
3. Your personal goals should not be conditional on others’ behaviour.
Allow yourself to be the best version of you without depending on someone else to make the first move. For example, your goal could be to work on your defensiveness. Your goal would NOT be to work on your defensiveness when your loved one works on their tidiness. Your goals are only for you, and should not be conditional on others’ actions, or used as a means to control others’ behaviour. Carrying through with your goals for yourself will likely bring you a sense of confidence and self-agency in your life.
4. You and your family members are all just pieces of a family puzzle.
Your family is like a completed puzzle, and every person has their perfectly crafted puzzle piece to fit in their available space. It is very challenging to maintain changes to your own puzzle piece when the space available to you is not also changing. Consider what space your family has carved out for you, and what space you have carved out for others. How can you become the puzzle piece that you want to be, and maintain this shape even when there are pressures trying to push you back to your original form? It also may be harder than expected to accept the new shapes of your loved ones around you.
5. It’s going to be hard work.
Shifting a family dynamic is hard to do. Oftentimes people are very settled in their routine and behaviours, even if they’re uncomfortable. Creating new patterns of functioning within a family will feel scary and unfamiliar. Family therapy is a good way to support the changes you would like to make and help you move through the steps to get there.
Take the First Step
Have questions? Book a complimentary phone consultation and see if family therapy is right for you and your family.
