The family is a small community in which life's stages can be challenging. Family members, individually and as a team, face the typical challenges of life stages. These include getting married, nesting, the birth of a child, starting kindergarten, starting school, adolescence, and children leaving home.
This is life itself, and you would think that it would all come easily and naturally. But that is not the case. These phases can be stressful and daunting for family members.
Family therapy aims to enable family members to safely express and explore difficult thoughts and feelings. Family members can accept each other's views with a deeper understanding. Fears, needs and feelings can be expressed.
The family therapist supports the family so that family members can draw on their own resources to understand their own role and stop potentially destructive behaviours. The ultimate goal is to achieve a more harmonious, understanding, accepting and open family communication and behaviour.
Often the whole family feels the tension in case:
- Family relationships become strained
- Changes in the family
- Children and adolescents have behavioural difficulties
- Anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders
- Parents themselves experience relationship problems
- Emotional disturbances such as anxiety, depression or bereavement occur
- Adoption
- Drug or alcohol abuse
- Self-harm
- Illness or disability
- Divorce
- Domestic violence
- Ageing-related difficulties
- Family communication problems