A family is a system of relationships in which every relationship impacts every other relationship. Trouble, or a change in any one of the relationships ends up making changes in all the relationships. Therefore, it can be very important to treat a whole family as a unit, rather than to try to only work with one or more isolated individuals from the affected family.
For example, when married parents divorce, their relationship with each other obviously changes, but so does each parent’s relationship with each of the children. The children’s relationships with each other also change. The divorcing parents’ relationships with the former in-laws also change, as do the childrens’ relationships with the extended family members.
Likewise, if a young, unmarried woman gets pregnant, her relationship with the father of the child tends to change rather dramatically, her relationship with her parents undergoes change, the relationships she has with her older and younger siblings will also change, as will her relationship with her friends. For her to best sort out her situation, each of those relationship issues will need to be addressed. It is not as effective to just focus on one relationship and expect all the others to just work themselves out.
Change or trouble in just one relationship causes changes in dozens of other relationships and to help everyone involved, you really need to look at how each of those relationships changes, involving as many people as possible in the family meetings.
There are always lots of family members who do not want to participate or who are not available to participate, and that’s okay. We simply try to work with as many of the affected individuals as we can, to try to bring some stability to the recently-upset family system.
This doesn’t mean we’re going to have your whole family tree in our office at one time, but if your family is undergoing changes, we may want to meet with a variety of your family members, in a number of creative ways, to help resolve multiple conflicts at once.
Call 480-705-5007 to begin Family Therapy.
