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Family therapy: Healing family conflicts
Families can be torn apart by illness, divorce or other problems that create conflict and stress. Family therapy can help families identify and resolve problems.
By Mayo Clinic staffYour family can be your greatest source of support, comfort and love. But it can also be your greatest source of pain and grief. A health crisis, mental illness, work problems or teenage rebellion may threaten to tear your family apart.
Family therapy can help your family weather such storms. Family therapy can help patch strained relationships, teach new coping skills and improve how your family works together. Whether it's you, your partner, a child or even a sibling or parent who's in crisis, family therapy can help all of you communicate better and learn to get along.
What is family therapy?
Family therapy is a type of psychotherapy. It helps families or individuals within a family understand and improve the way family members interact with each other and resolve conflicts.
Family therapy is usually provided by therapists known as marriage and family therapists. These therapists provide the same mental health services as other therapists, simply with a specific focus — family relationships.
Family therapy is often short term. You usually attend one session a week, typically for three to five months. In some cases, though, families may need more intensive treatment. The treatment plan will depend on your family's specific situation.
Who can benefit from family therapy?
In general, anyone who wants to improve troubled relationships can benefit from family therapy. Family therapy can help with such issues as:
- Marital problems
- Divorce
- Eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia
- Substance abuse
- Depression or bipolar disorder
- Chronic health problems, such as asthma or cancer
- Grief, loss and trauma
- Work stress
- Parenting skills
- Emotional abuse or violence
- Financial problems
Your family may do family therapy along with other types of mental health treatment, especially if one of you has a serious mental illness that also requires intense individual therapy. Family therapy isn't a substitute for other necessary treatments. For instance, family therapy can help family members cope if a relative has schizophrenia. But the person with schizophrenia should continue with his or her individualized treatment plan, such as medication and possibly hospitalization.
In some cases, family therapy may be ordered by the legal system. Adolescents in trouble with the law may be ordered into family therapy rather than serving jail time, for instance. Violent or abusive parents are sometimes spared jail if they enter family therapy. Divorcing couples may also be required to attend family therapy.
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