Family Counselling

What is family therapy?

Family therapy is based on the belief that individuals are better understood as part of their family than in isolation from one another. Each family is unique, with its own ways of doing things and patterns of communication. Many factors determine these patterns, including parents' values, personalities of all the members, cultural, and influence of the whanua (grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.).

Family counselling is becoming increasingly common as changes in our society are reflected in a variety of new structures. The main concept is that a person’s symptoms take place in the larger context.

When is it useful?

If one or more family member is in distress it effects everyone. Our counsellors can work with a full range of relationship and psychological problems including:

• conflict, arguing, fighting, etc.
• child/teen behaviour or school problems
• one person having trouble with depression, eating problems, anxiety, etc.
• stressful event involving everyone, such as death, divorce, or financial

This approach is suitable for helping both families and individual members. Everyone can help reduce tension and improve wellbeing and help everyone else in their recovery. All members play an active role in the therapy. Family counselling is relationship-oriented. It is often a short-term therapy, focused on solving specific problems by making practical changes.

The benefits are:

• learn about how their family functions and how each person effects everyone else
• helping focus less on the troubled individual and more on the whole
• identifying conflicts and anxieties and helping develop strategies to resolve them
• enhancing strengths to handle conflicts
• learning better ways to interact with each other

It can also be helpful to anticipate a major change in families’ lives. For example, a new relationship between parents with children from a previous relationship can benefit from a counselling, helping all members learn to live together.