Understanding Family Therapy
in Addiction Treatment
The families of addiction patients often have an essential role in the processes of treatment and recovery. In addition to helping patients, joint and individual therapy sessions can also benefit family members. Their participation can be pivotal in determining the success of the individual’s recovery journey, as the support and actions of the family typically make a significant difference in preventing relapse.
Attending therapy can also help family members understand which actions may aid their loved one in maintaining sobriety, and which might trigger them. Lastly, family therapy can also help everyone within this micro-community address any residual hurt or unresolved problems that might have arisen due to the patient’s addictive behaviours.
The importance of family therapy has only grown in the present day. Nowadays, it is the second most popular treatment method among specialists, after cognitive behavioural therapy. In addition to substance and behavioural addictions, this therapy type is also suitable for treating disordered eating, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.
Why is Family Therapy Effective as a Treatment?
Childhood experiences and problems within familial relationships are often contributing factors for the development and aggravation of addiction. For this reason, therapy sessions attended by the patient alone often cannot yield the best possible results. Namely, including loved ones in the process may help the patient see the effects that their behaviours have on their family. Furthermore, it can also give the therapist a deeper insight into how and why the addiction developed and progressed. Thus, the goal of family therapy is to foster a supportive environment in which all parties will be able to express their thoughts and feelings and progress toward mutual understanding.
The benefits of family therapy
A large body of research demonstrates the positive impact the family can have on a loved one’s recovery from addiction. Some of the many benefits of family involvement in recovery, include:
- Keeping your loved one engaged and motivated during treatment
- Learning about addiction and its effects on the family as well as understanding how treatment works and what to expect long term
- Enabling family members to voice feelings and concerns and ask questions about a loved one’s addiction
- Offering a loved one a high level of appropriate support after treatment
- Easing feelings of fear, anger, stress and confusion related to the addiction
- The chance for family members to develop new skills and coping strategies to help a loved one stay on the path to recovery
- Improvements in family communication skills
- The opportunity to address any mental health issues within the family system, such as depression or anxiety, which can hamper family communication and contribute to relapse
When to Go for Family Therapy?
Addiction therapy and treatment take a different shape for each individual case. Therefore, treatment options that are suitable for one patient and their family might be entirely ill-suited for another. In certain cases, including family members in the process might even prove to be counterproductive, which is why specialists in charge of the treatment programme ought to make individual decisions for each patient based on their needs. If family members want to attend therapy in order to help the patients, these sessions may also take place separately.
What Happens During Family Therapy?
Generally, family therapy takes place in a group setting that brings together both the addiction patient and their loved ones. However, this type of therapy may also include the patient alone and encourage them to explore their familial relations and their influences on the development of the dependency. Likewise, therapists might also talk with family members without the patient being present.
Using their experience and knowledge of the patient’s history, therapists foster a safe and confidential environment for the sessions. Their goal is to bring about a positive change in communication and discuss important issues without triggering either party.
What to Expect from Family Therapy
Specialists may use family therapy to achieve different results. These include analysing family power dynamics, developing joint coping strategies, improving conscious and unconscious communication skills, and identifying and amending addictive behaviours.
While its potential is undeniable, family therapy is by no means a miraculous cure for addiction. Yet, this type of therapy can indeed help patients build stronger and deeper relationships with their families. As a result, it can facilitate a supportive, loving, and understanding setting in which battling addiction becomes more manageable. Moreover, family therapy can ensure that relations that may already be strained do not suffer any further damage.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are
tiny matters compared to what lies within us
The Role of Counselling in Family Therapy
Depending on an individual’s needs, therapists may take various approaches during family therapy. Generally, their aim is to explore the familial relationships and how the patient’s dependence has affected them. Moreover, this approach allows the counsellor to witness the familial environment and how it may have facilitated the addiction. Oftentimes, therapists assume the role of a mediator during challenging conversations and guide all parties toward a fruitful resolution and compromise.
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