Family therapies
Who are they for? What are the benefits?
Family therapy is a space dedicated to improving communication, understanding, and relationships within the family. Whether you are facing tensions, conflicts, or difficult events, this therapy allows each family member to express their feelings and gain a better understanding of family dynamics.
It is generally aimed at families where one or more children are experiencing difficulties in interaction, behavioral development, or serious eating disorders. These therapies may also be recommended in the context of parental separation or divorce, as well as issues related to custody, to support the child during this challenging time.
They are based on the principle that a child in difficulty often reflects an overall family imbalance. The child becomes the visible symptom of a family in distress. Therefore, it is essential to explore all interactions that influence the functioning of the family. It is important to remember that each family, as a group, needs a certain stability to function, and any change in the balance of one member can affect the entire group.
The most commonly used techniques are either :
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Systemic therapies, founded in the USA, which are based on the so-called "system theory". They consider the family as a system, and seek to restore its balance by relying on theories of communication ;
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Psychoanalytic family therapies that use individual psychoanalytic concepts to understand the structure of interpersonal conflicts in action in the family group. They take into account the projection of the parents' unresolved psychic conflicts onto their child, who experiences them passively. And they consider the intervention of transgenerational conflicts : the unresolved conflicts between the parents of the suffering child and their own parents are often projected onto this child.
Who should participate ?
For better care, it is often preferable to meet all the family members, parents, brothers, sisters or even grandparents of the patient. At least during the first sessions. Then, the sessions will bring together the essential stakeholders of the family group.
What is the process?