Family Therapy helps people in a close relationship help each other. It enables family members, couples and others who care about each other to express and explore difficult thoughts and emotions safely, to understand each other’s experiences and views, appreciate each other’s needs, build on strengths and make useful changes in their relationships and their lives. Individuals can find Family Therapy helpful, as an opportunity to reflect on important relationships and find ways forward.
I can offer this as an intervention and as a way to help a family in crisis find a way forward that may develop into couples therapy or parenting help.
The skill of parenting children could be said to be the most important thing in this world, since children are the future of humankind and since it is during childhood that personality is shaped and many of our strengths and weaknesses are formed. Parenting contributes both to the qualities and the problems and yet its importance is both underestimated and misunderstood.
Many problems in parenting can be overcome through the right kind of support, mainly for the parents, so that they can better help the child, ensuring that the issues do not accumulate and continue into adulthood. The sessions may be conducted with one or both parents and with or without the child or children present.
In the first instance, the aim is to establish a clear picture of the issues and their causes. This is followed by support and exploration of the ways in which the problems can be overcome. This may be through ways of dealing with the actual issue, through modifying the parents’ response or by looking at family patterns. All of this happens in a warm and supportive environment.
With the right parenting skills – parenting your children can be fun! Additional support will be suggested if deemed appropriate. The parents will be encouraged to set up the kind of lifestyle, support and care that will ensure the progress continues. I do not provide separate sessions for children.
Rebecca Neeld Counselling & Psychotherapy in Richmond, Ham & Kingston
