"With increasing life and social demands on children, teenagers, and college students, stress, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, and other serious mental health challenges continue to rise. Frequently, individual therapy and parent guidance are recommended and implemented for support. However, after working in the field for over 25 years, I have come to recognize that family therapy is frequently absent or minimal in this therapeutic journey."
"This is surprising and confusing, as so often in the depths of mental health challenges, the family is under tremendous stress. Hence, family conflict, parental disagreements, poor communication, barriers to participation and involvement (especially for parents of 16-year-olds and above), misinformation, and lack of cohesive family engagement ensue. Our mental health challenges do not occur in isolation; they are embedded in the family system and impact all family members in profound ways."
Family therapy engages all family members significantly involved in the client's life and care to address relational dynamics that affect mental health. It targets honesty, transparency, improved communication, and rebuilding trust while resolving disparate and conflicting individual family needs. Family therapy is often underutilized even in intensive programs, despite elevated risk and substantial family stress during youth mental health crises. Common barriers include parental disagreements, poor communication, misinformation, and limited parental participation for older adolescents. Family therapy supports navigation of stressful life transitions, loss, and chronic illness, and can create bridges that integrate individual treatment with family-level change to promote recovery.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]