Working with families is always
challenging, often emotional and believe it or not sometimes
fun. Families only ever attend for psychological counselling
when someone in the family seriously thinks that something
is not working properly leading to conflict or disengagement
or isolation.
The challenge for the psychologist is to help galvanise,
co-ordinate or facilitate all the members of the family
to work together, to have a voice, to consider each other
and to overcome whatever difficulties have arisen leading
to their attendance for assistance.
As such therapy for families is offered to assist them to:
• develop enhanced communication and interaction between
family members
• successfully resolve conflict
• establish boundaries and appropriate roles and rules within
the family.
Family therapy or counselling works best when all members
of the family attend, and if we are trying to help the whole
family this is what we prefer. Sometimes by agreement
with the family, we will see only part of the family—often
this is the case with initial appointments when parents
attend to discuss their concerns about their family.
Where the parents are separated, the psychologist will have
discussed who attends the appointment with the person making
the arrangements or at a previous appointment with one of
the parents. It is more common when parents are separated
that only the people within a household attend consultations,
unless one or more adult children are living out of home
and wish to be involved. In some cases consultations with
the family may include a parent who lives in another house
by agreement with all concerned.
Very often the need for family consultations has arisen
out of earlier work with the parents or with one particular
child/adolescent within the family. However it is equally
possible that a family, usually through the agency of one
of the parents, may ring requesting family consultations
as the whole unit has become dysfunctional in some way.
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