Over the years, the importance of mental health is on the rise. People, including celebrities, are bravely opening up about their psychological issues. People have become aware of the adverse effects of repressing mental health issues.
As mental health issues become noticeable only after they reach advanced stages, people need encouragement to open up and speak their minds.
Everyone, at some point in their lives, experiences extreme emotions. While these emotions are normal, when a person feels intense emotions for long periods, they should consider individual or family therapy.
Since the days of Sigmund Freud, psychology has come a long way. While they accepted Freudian theories, many alternative views have sprung up that both challenge and corroborate Psychoanalysis Theory.
Today, councilors, therapists, clinical psychologists, mental health experts, and psychiatrists offer multi-disciplinary therapies to cope with mental issues. These therapies are efficient and long-lasting.
The study of psychology stresses the importance of an individual’s surroundings which have a considerable bearing on their mental health and contributes to negative thought patterns. It includes their family, friends, and colleagues, or any other people they are regularly in close contact with.
FAMILY THERAPY: WHO NEEDS IT?
People always crave companionship, though some also don’t mind solitude. But mostly, the family of the individual plays a central role in their life. Group therapy has proven its efficacy repeatedly.
People find solace in like-minded others and with a group that can sympathize with what they are going through. Group therapies aim to bring together a group of individuals who have similar mental issues or face similar emotional trauma.
Talking to each other and about themselves, people find comfort in knowing that their feelings are valid and not alone. Going a step further, this therapy aims at the entire family. This therapy is beneficial to families who have gone through some trauma together.
This trauma could be the loss or death of a loved one or even marital separation. Such kinds of trauma affect the entire family, and each of them reacts differently. Their reactions also affect each other. This therapy helps them recognize these behaviors and thought patterns.
The members can understand their feelings and emotions about the trauma and how their reactions affect the other members.
This therapy also helps family members cope with an individual in their family who may have severe mental health issues like depression, schizophrenia, alcohol or drug abuse, bipolar disorder, or personality disorders. Therapy sessions for the family help them cope with their emotions healthily and positively.
WORKING AND BENEFITS
Therapists specialized in familial psychology, or family therapists, are the ones who deal with these situations. These therapists are experts at dealing with a group of people and can efficiently administer therapy to a family dealing with mental problems.
This therapy uses various psychological theories to deal with the situation at hand. Family therapists use these techniques over a few sessions for people to gain maximum benefit out of them.
Family therapy is committed to attending sessions regularly and inculcating the findings and recommendations given during those sessions. These sessions have proven to be immensely successful for a wide variety of issues, and offer the following benefits,
- Most family problems occur because of a lack of communication. This therapy aims at developing healthy modes of communication between family members.
- This therapy helps family members healthily resolve interpersonal issues. The members interact with one another in a calm and accepting setting, allowing for all problems to come to the forefront and find resolutions for them.
- This therapy provides a channel to develop problem-solving techniques that are best suited for the family situation. The members can use this technique the next time any interpersonal or communication problems arise.
- Family therapy aims at increasing the sense of empathy amongst family members. This therapy helps the members understand the behavioral and thought patterns of one another to see the situation through the other person’s eyes. This practice teaches an environment of acceptance and love, leading to lesser chances of further conflict.
- This therapy helps encourage the members to be more open during conflicts. The therapist helps the members be more open-minded about issues that the other face to talk about anything to one another. The therapist helps them create a special bond where the family members no longer feel judged or misunderstood, thus strengthening their relationships.
Family therapy is an essential and crucial form factor in many familial issues. Most mental health issues rarely affect only the individual and cause repercussions for the family.
This therapy helps the members understand their weaknesses and strengths as a family, and work towards a more healthy, accepting, and loving bond.
