Family Counselling
Family Counselling
Almost every family goes through difficult situations at some stage, which can disrupt the home environment and change the family dynamics. In such situations, Family Therapy can help.
Family Therapy or Family Counselling is a type of counselling that helps families improve their relationships and work through difficult times, grief, challenges, and struggles. The main goal of family therapy is to strengthen family relationships and restore peace by identifying and solving pertaining issues.
How Does Family Therapy Work?
Family therapy involves the whole family system and the various relationships that exist within a larger family system as a single unit. The strength of family therapy lies in the fact that the interaction between different family members in the therapeutic environment is often similar to their interactions at home.
During each session, the therapist examines different personal relations, identifies patterns, and works closely with each individual and the family as a whole. They explore each family member’s views and interactions and how it affects themselves and their relationship with the other members of the family.
Other Interventions Used in Family Therapy
Depending on the unique needs of the parents and their children, family therapists can also use other therapies like Filial Therapy and Theraplay.
Filial Therapy
Filial therapy is a combination of family therapy and play therapy techniques that helps strengthen the relationship between parents and children. Filial Therapy educates and empowers parents with the skills needed to help support their children to solve their emotional and behavioural concerns, which, in turn, improves the overall relationship in the family.
Theraplay
Theraplay is also a type of family therapy that combines attachment-based play therapy that supports parents and children to feel more connected. Through play and fun activities, therapists assess the attachment between the child and the parent and guide them to develop healthy and caring child-parent interactions to secure their attachment. Theraplay makes it easy for children to process their emotions and feel safe, supported, and confident.
Who Benefits From Family Therapy?
Family Therapy is extremely useful for adults of all ages, couples, children, and young people experiencing a range of difficult emotions and mental health concerns, affecting the whole family system.
Some common concerns that family therapy addresses are behavioural, emotional and communication issues, grief, loss, parenting and co-parenting issues, relational problems, and conflicts in blended families.
Family Therapy helps families:
- Facilitate a better understanding of the family dynamics
- Improve communication and interaction between family members
- Reduce stress and conflict within the family
- Discover new ways to resolve conflicts
- Develop and maintain healthy boundaries
- Develop and maintain empathy
- Deal with divorce, separation, or loss
- Improve parent-child relationship
- Prepare for significant transitions in life
How Does Family Therapy Help Children?
While family counselling is a “talk therapy”, children can become uncomfortable expressing their emotions in the same way adults do. By incorporating family therapy and child-centred play therapy through Filial Therapy, a play therapist can explore issues with the child and help parents to address those issues through play. It also helps to address and improve the child-parent dynamics.
At CoRe Kids Therapy, we create a safe space for adults and children to express their emotions and have their needs understood, which assists them to make effective behaviour choices and attain skills to strengthen relationships.
Our Family Therapists, Play Therapists, and Child Counsellors are available for Individual or Family/Group Therapy sessions from our centre in Yarraville and our South East Melbourne location in Moorabbin.