At Brisbane Counselling Centre, there are psychologists who are qualified and trained to assist with family counselling, where the primary aim is to facilitate understanding and collaboration among family members in order to achieve more harmonious and healthy relationships.
Family therapy and counselling can be an invaluable tool in sorting through difficulties or hardships your family unit may be experiencing. There is no ‘wrong’ time to commence family therapy. With the aid of an experienced family therapist you can become well equipped to ensure positive communication and healthy relationships are formed and maintained between family members.
It’s a safe haven to discuss and solve persistent relationship issues and to foster the family’s strengths, helping to improve relationships and navigate difficult times with understanding and support.
What is family therapy?
Family therapy is a broad all-encompassing term that references a type of psychology that works with families to nurture positive development and change. It is meant to address specific issues your family might be struggling with and aims to provide you with frameworks and techniques to overcome them.
What is the purpose of family therapy?
Family therapy or counselling can be used to assist with a wide range of behaviours and complex family dynamics, but at its core exists to help family members resolve conflict and improve their communication and functionality. How long your family comes to therapy depends on what issues you are dealing with. A treatment plan is established to assess needs, deliver skills, strategies and other resources, and mediate the resolution of issues in a safe and caring environment.
Did you know? 30% of our practitioners excel in adult family therapy, with a dedicated 10% specialising in aiding younger family members.
When is family therapy necessary?
The reason your family may decide to begin counselling is highly individualised. Family counselling can be used proactively or reactively, it depends on what circumstances you are facing.
Some of the issues we can help you with include:
- interpersonal conflict
- parenting skills
- adolescent adjustment
- separation & divorce
- blended families
- controlling & abusive behaviours
- establishing boundaries
- drug & alcohol abuse
- sibling conflict
- anger management
- grief & loss
How should we prepare for family therapy?
If this is your first family therapy session, or your first experience with counselling altogether it can be hard to know what to expect. There are a few key steps you should consider taking before attending your first family counselling session. Ideally, all family members attend the first session. Talk to all involved about why you’re going to therapy. Family counselling aims to facilitate understanding and resolve conflict, so it’s important that no one family member is blindsided walking into the room either because they don’t know why they are there, or worse, that they weren’t aware they were coming to an appointment at all.
Make sure everyone understands how you arrived at the decision to attend family therapy with a skilled family therapist. Think about or write notes on what you want to discuss before your appointment. Trying to remember incidents and how they made you feel in a particular moment, sometimes weeks/years after they occurred, can be difficult and reduce how effective therapy sessions are. Try to come prepared with talking points so your family psychologist can explore them in depth with you and improve relationships within the family.
If possible, try to encourage everyone attending the appointment to do this.At the end of the day, every family has different needs which means the reason they attend family therapy is different. It can be hard knowing when the right time to start is, or what to expect and addressing common issues effectively can sometimes be a short term commitment or require extended support for more complex family issues.