What Is Marriage & Family Counseling?
Some couples may attend marriage counseling or may even involve the whole family to take part in family counseling. Couples and families seek counseling to help build upon the relationships and to have an unbiased, third party involved.
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History
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Marriage counseling came about in the 1930s, when the effectiveness of working with both partners in therapy was recognized. Treating families in a therapeutic way was not introduced until the 1950s.
Marriage Counseling
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Marriage or couple counseling is when spouses enter therapeutic treatment, usually to solve their differences. Problems which may have brought the couple into therapy include infidelity, financial issues, trust issues, sexual relation issues, anger or illness.
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Couples Treatment
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More often than not marriage counseling is short term. During therapy, the couple is given tools which they can use to communicate more effectively and try to get through the problems which may be arising in their married life.
Family Counseling
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While marriage counseling only involves the spouses, family counseling usually involves the whole family. This can include immediate family such as children and when needed may even include extended family such as aunt, uncles or grandparents. Family counseling provides the family with a neutral ground to discuss problems such as finances, divorce, illness or children's behavior.
Family Treatment
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During therapy, the family learns how to communicate more effectively, learn about their place or roles in the family and recognize the family's weaknesses as well as the strengths. The goal is to have the family evolve from individual members to a unified family.
Considerations
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Techniques which may be used during marriage and family counseling include genograms or family floor plans. Genograms allow the family to create the family tree showing significant pattern such as relationship or divorce patterns. Family floor plans allows for the therapist to see which family members have close relationships or what kind of subsystems occur within the family.
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References
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