What You Can Expect and Hope to Gain from Family Counseling

Functional families are often believed to be the bedrock of our society. They are the most basic unit of a community and even government. They provide and secure members’ health, education, and their interests. This is why family counseling can be of use.

However, negative behavior of any individual member of the family can cause fractures in the unit, and often professional therapy is an effective source of support and help. Family counseling is a type of counseling that not only assists individuals within the family but the family as a single group.

If you wonder whether family therapy will be helpful to your family as it deals with particular stresses, this article will briefly describe the skills of a family counselor and the different instances families find counseling beneficial.

Family counseling helps in these ways.

Of course, families are unique and therefore several types of therapy can be used to support them through family counseling.

Two common types are solution-focused brief therapy as well as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Solution-focused brief therapy sets out short-term goals for the therapy sessions and incorporates positive psychology principles and practices. This helps families focus on the solution instead of the problem.

The type of therapy is described as hope-friendly and looks to bring out positive emotions to help create a future orientation for the family as they work together in a motivated way to implement the agreed sustainable behavioral change.

In other words, the point of solution-focused brief therapy is for the family to work together to solve their own problems.

The second type of therapy is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which helps families to notice and understand ways of thinking that are not helpful, and sometimes harmful. New ways of thinking are nurtured.

Types of problems tackled during family counseling.

Professionals involved in family therapy are trained to assist with a broad spectrum of significant clinical problems. Some of these may include:

• Anxiety and depression.
• Marriage problems.
• Individual mental and mood issues.
• Complex dynamics surrounding the parent-child relationship.

Family counseling professionals are often mental health professionals and practitioners who have professional training and years of clinical practice experience. These professionals are licensed as Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists to consider, determine, and treat mental and emotional disorders, issues with health and behavior, as well as the relationship complexities that surround couples, marriage, and families.

Research shows that in some cases marriage and family therapy results in better outcomes than individual counseling for mental health problems, for example:

• Adult alcoholism.
• Adult schizophrenia.
• Affective or mood disorder.
• Anorexia in young adult women.
• Childhood autism.
• Childhood conduct disorders .
• Chronic physical illness in adults and children.
• Drug abuse in adolescents and adults.
• Marital distress disputes.

The need for family counseling professionals.

Studies verify the successful impact family counseling professionals have in treating a wide variety of significant and complex problems that beset families. Further research finds that the families who went for counseling were pleased and satisfied with the help they received from marriage and family health therapists.

The results from studies showed that more than 85% of clients reported that their emotional health improved, and almost 75% of parents with children reported better behavior inside and outside the family unit, as well as an improvement in overall school performance.

Similar findings among adults in the family unit show that as health, emotional, and mental disorders are helped through family counseling, there are improvements in professional productivity and relationships, social life, involvement in the community, and overall well-being.

Looking for the type of help that family therapy provides?

If you are looking for the type of help that family therapy provides, please browse our online counselor directory or contact our office at Huntington Beach Christian Counseling to schedule an appointment. The Christian counselors in Huntington Beach, California would be honored to walk with you on this journey.