About Systemic Family Therapy

If you haven't experienced it, family therapy is hard to describe. It's a way of exploring difficulties without expecting all the solutions from you alone. Nor does it try to blame anyone else. We say that 'YOU are no the problem, the PROBLEM is the problem!'. In other words, we are saying 'forget trying to pin thos on someone, we're all in it together so what are we going to do about it?' 

Why 'systemic'? Because the way we think about problems is influenced by the people around us - friends, family members, and many, many others. These people form a 'system', so that what hapens in one place in the 'system' tends to have ripple effects in many directions. 

We are all influenced by relationships, including those that go all the way back to childhood. Being more interested in each other’s cultural and family backgrounds helps us to notice how different we are from one another, and to value those differences rather than fear them. 
  
 The word 'therapy' would sound scary if it was supposed to mean trying to 'cure' people. We don't see it that way because we know that  there is no such a thing as a ‘normal’ family. Families under stress are almost always doing their best to overcome difficulties but they often develop approaches that turn out to be unhelpful despite good intentions.

Most couples and families are very resourceful in meeting challenges, but a therapist can often help people notice new possibilities. Families often describe a problem in one particular way, where a different description would throw a completely different light on it. For example, as a result of therapy a woman might break the habit of thinking of herself as always in the wrong. A child might come to be seen as ‘different’ in positive ways, rather than as ‘sick’. A man might recognise that the struggles he had as a teenager are part of the reason why he gets angry with his own children 
  
You can learn more about family therapy from the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice. Download their leaflet here