Kirsten Beuthin, LMFT - Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
What is Family Therapy?
The basic idea about family therapy is that the family is a system. This means that what is happening to one person in the family system will have an effect on others in the family system. Family therapy provides an opportunity and a place for family members to come together and work through issues that might be affecting the entire family. Initial meetings will focus on figuring out what is not working and why, and goals for the therapy will be agreed upon. Often families need some help with conflict mediation, learning how to commincate more clearly, and developing more effective ways of coping with stress.
Blended Families
The high rate of divorce in the United States has led to an increasing number of families whose family configuration has changed. In the event that either parent remarries, the original family is changed and all the members find themselves making shifts to incorporate new family members. Family therapy can prove to be very helpful to all members of the families, original, blended, or step, as it gives a neutral forum for the discussion of the issues that arise. Parents can be seen individually, and together, with their new partners, and also with their children in order to define new family rules and roles. Child and adolescent therapy sessions can help to identify any areas of potential difficulty and aide the children in making sense of and adjusting to the dramatic changes that have taken place in their lives as a result of their parent's divorce. Co-parenting is also a significant focus when blended families enter therapy.