Watch Out For These Mistakes If You’re About To Take On Family Therapy

Family CounselingFebruary 12, 2019

More families need sessions of family therapy than you could possibly imagine. Family therapy is nothing to be ashamed of, and the stigma that it gets is completely unwarranted as this therapy is one of the best things that you could do for yourself and for your family in order to lead a healthier and more successful life. There are all sorts of reasons that you might want to attend a family therapy session, and each and every one of them is legitimate. The parents of the family might have a fighting problem, which is detrimental to the health and well-being of the children. A child might have behavioral issues, or might be addicted to gadgets or gaming. Even divorces are reason enough to go to family therapy as children are often confused and upset during such events. However, you need to make sure that your therapy sessions are as productive as possible, which means you’ll need to avoid these mistakes if you want to make the most of your time and money:

Not Opening Up During The Session

Your therapist needs to know everything that’s going on between the family, and that cannot happen unless everyone is perfectly honest about the situation and their take on it. While every experienced therapist should be able to create an environment where the entire family feels safe coming out with what they think, the family itself should already have the mindset where they’re about to enter the therapist’s room. Only then can you expect to solve whatever problems the family is going through as a whole. The parents should make sure that they talk to each other about this first, and then to the children. Family therapy should be about honesty and trust, which means shedding any feelings that you may have, even though they might seem hurtful to another member of the family.

A Family Member Not Showing Up

As much as the stigma around therapy is now dissolving, a lot of people will still think that the therapy makes them look bad. They might even deem it unnecessary and insist that there isn’t a problem which requires the family to go to therapy. A lot of the times, this may be the same individual due to whom the problems are arising. Some slight persuasion might help, but if not, then it’s better to go on without them and seek advice from your therapist about how to resolve the situation. Chances are, they’ll help you with convincing your remaining family member to actively participate in the therapy sessions as well. If not, the least that will happen is that you’ll learn how to cope with that family member (if they’re the problem) in the healthiest way possible. If they aren’t the family member with the problem, the losses due to their absence can be minimized by your therapist. However, bear in mind that the best results will only emerge if the entire family is on board with family therapy.

Rushing Through The Sessions

This is another huge mistake that many people make during family therapy. Everyone is, understandably, in a hurry to reach their end of the story and what they’re going through on a daily basis. Not listening to the therapist and rushing through the process will only waste your time and money, which is the opposite of why you chose therapy in the first place. While a good therapist will keep things under control, on the off-chance that they’re unable to, the family will need to be as disciplined as possible so that the encounter is smooth. The rule of thumb is to simply follow what the therapist says. Sometimes, therapists will allow some controlled arguing between family members and will set up rules to disallow this from getting out of control. No member of the family should be in a hurry to get out of the room and should be patient in listening to what the entire family has to say.