Does Family Therapy work for Individuals?

Family Therapy does work for individuals, but it has a different flavor to it.

Let me begin by saying family therapy is a poor description. A better description is relationship therapy. Family therapy deals with relationships much better than other therapies. Working within relationships is baked into family therapy.

We are all connected to each other

The obvious relationships are between members of a family. However, we have relationships with so many different, shall I say, things. We have relationships between us and people beyond our family, like a boss, but also between us and values, diagnoses, money, racism, and so on. We even have relationships with ourselves.

Family therapy then looks at those relationships. Some of these connections are likely troublesome, else why contemplate discussing them in therapy? Early in a family therapy meeting with an individual person, we might look at the history of a troublesome relationship.

• When did the relationship begin?

• When did the trouble begin? What might account for that trouble coming between you two?

• What have you tried to make things better? Of what you tried, what worked even a little bit?

• If you were able to put the trouble aside for a bit, how did you do that? If the relationship began to improve, what would you likely notice first?

• Let’s say the relationship got better in the future; looking back from that future, what do you imagine you did to get to this point?

• Once you got to this point of an improved relationship, how to you imagine you would consider yourself? Bold, brave, resourceful, persistent, something else?

Some people have said reading through a list of questions like these helped improve their relationship. Can you imagine how much better that improvement might be if the questions were tailored to your specific issue?