Stronger Together: The Power of Systemic Family Therapy
As a Registered Social Worker and counsellor here in Calgary, I commonly see individuals who are struggling with their mental health. However in consultation with the client, it quickly becomes clear that the entire family, not just the individual, are both impacted by the problem and could positively contribute to the solutions.
I use a therapeutic approach called Systemic Family Therapy to support these families. In this article, I’ll provide an overview to this approach and some of the benefits to families.
What is Family Therapy
Systemic family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that aims to help families understand and overcome difficulties in their relationships. It views individuals as part of a larger system, meaning that the interactions between family members can significantly impact the functioning of the family as a whole.
Benefits of Family Therapy
Family therapy can improve communication, decrease conflict, and increase understanding between family members. It can help families strengthen their positive coping mechanisms and learn how to better support one another through difficult times. Additionally, it can help family members feel more connected and increase their sense of belonging and togetherness.
Who Would Benefit from Family Therapy
Anyone who is experiencing difficulties in their family relationships can benefit from family therapy. This can include families who are going through significant changes such as divorce, death, illness, as well as families who are struggling with communication or interpersonal issues. Family therapy can also be helpful for individuals who are experiencing mental health concerns, as it can provide a supportive and healing environment for the entire family.
Children as old as 5 years can participate in a family therapy session. Siblings, parents, stepparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and honourary family members are all welcome to participate as well.
Why I Love Working with Families
As a social worker, I bring a unique lens to my counselling practice because I have been trained to consider how the ‘systems’ we exist within influence our individual choices and wellbeing. The phrase we were taught in my undergrad that has always stuck with me is ‘the personal is political and the political is personal.’ This means whatever we are going through exists within a sociocultural context, we are impacted by this context, and we have the ability to impact this wider context as well. So in my work with clients, I am particularly interested in how the contexts of history, culture, faith and family (among others) contribute to the issues that bring a client to see me. And as we progress in our work together, we will also explore how the client can positively impact these spheres with the insights and changes they are gaining.
This is why I love to work with families, to not only better understand the family system but to locate the solution within a support system that can create lasting change. With a systemic family therapy approach we move from individual problems and solutions to shared challenges and experiences with collaborative solutions. Rather than individuals being labelled as ‘the problem’ and the onus being put on them alone to fix it, family therapy supports the family members in coming together to work as a team to address an issue that inevitably impacts everyone in the family system. It changes the environment within which the problem exists rather than expecting the individual to adapt to the environment.
No-one’s the problem, Everyone‘s the solution.
Systemic family therapy is not a method that seeks to point blame. Family therapists view all family members as part of the system and aims to help everyone in the family understand and work through their individual and collective challenges. However, issues of power are taken into account, so that those with the most power are encouraged to take the first steps towards repairing relationships and creating positive changes.
The IPscope Framework
I studied with Dr. Karl Tomm, a renowned family therapist based here in Calgary. He developed the IPscope, a framework that focuses on the relationship patterns observed between family members.
The goal of the therapist is to bring forward interaction patterns observed within the family system, including behaviours, attitudes, feelings, ideas, or beliefs that tend to be mutually reinforcing, meaning the behaviour consistently invites the same response. For example, ‘criticizing’ may consistently invite ‘avoiding’ and ‘avoiding’ invites more ‘criticizing’. These patterned couplings of behaviour can cause a family to feel stuck in negative relationship states. The therapist works collaboratively with the family to identify and interrupt the negative or problematic patterns of interaction and in their place generate patterns of healing and wellness within the family system. Sometimes this is achieved by changing one part of the interaction thereby inviting a different response from the other family members. Other times ‘healing interaction patterns’ are strengthened so that they become more prevalent than the problematic interaction patterns.
Ultimately, the family not only gains a shared understanding, language and solution for the problem, but in doing so they collectively change the context in which the problem exists; undermining some of the systemic factors that contributed to the problem.
Conclusions
In conclusion, family therapy can provide significant benefits for individuals and families going through significant changes, struggling with interpersonal issues, or experiencing mental health concerns. Problems are addressed collectively; family relationships are strengthened, and lasting change is made possible.