Family and Couple Therapy

Introduction:

Mental health experts have always mentioned the role of family members and spouses in counselling. Families are a significant element of India’s social structure and bonding. As a result, they play an essential role in the treatment and rehabilitation process for those diagnosed with mental or behavioural illnesses. When a person is impacted, the stigma of being mentally ill extends to the individual’s spouse/partner, other family members and caregivers. According to Goffman, this sort of stigma is known as “Courtesy Stigma.” Indian families are typically unaware of mental diseases and how to cope with them, and as a result, they may wind up perpetuating or prolonging the sickness. Therefore, family and couple therapy provide a safe space to come up with and discuss issues causing distress and conflict within the social structures and measures to prevent them.

Family Counselling:

Family therapy is an organised style of psychological therapy that aims at improving the dynamics of relationships between family members to lessen uncomfortable distress and conflict. It is regarded as a great way to help members of a family cope with a family member with an addiction, a medical problem, or a mental health condition. Family therapists are therapists who focus on strengthening relationships in particular: They’re usually more interested in what’s going on in the family as a whole, than one of them. A therapist may focus on analysing specific previous occurrences of conflict situations, such as reviewing a previous incident and proposing alternate methods members of the family might have responded to one another during it, or instead go straight to addressing the sources of conflict, trying to point out patterns of interaction that went unnoticed, depending on the conflicts at hand and the progress of therapy till date.

Instead of pinpointing a single cause, family therapists are more interested in maintaining and resolving problems. For many families, cause-and-effect analyses may be seen as attempts to apportion blame to one or more people, emphasising causation of little or no clinical benefit.It’s worth noting that, in contrast to a linear approach, a circular approach to problem appraisal is applied, notably in systemic medicines. Families can benefit from this strategy by identifying patterns of behaviour, determining the causes, and determining what can be done to improve their condition. Families can use family therapy to help them build or maintain a healthy and functional family. Patients and families dealing with increasingly difficult and intractable problems, such as schizophrenia with a lousy prognosis, behaviour and personality disorders, require family intervention and counselling. These sessions might range in length from eight to twenty or more at times.

Couples Counselling:

People in a relationship may find that their partner wants different things in life when they begin to drift apart. Infidelity may also play a role, or their spouse may feel “trapped” in a relationship with no way out. To begin, the partner must accept that the marriage is in peril before attending couples’ counselling. In this scenario, marriage and family therapy may be highly beneficial. Marriage and family therapy may be quite effective in this situation. Indeed, marriage and family therapists can improve communication among all members of your family, thereby healing deep-seated emotional distress.

Couple counselling isn’t just for unhappy or struggling couples, however. Couples therapy for non-married couples is also included. Marriage counselling, also known as couple counselling, can be utilised to develop ties and better know one another regardless of marital status. It can also be used to assist couples who are about to marry or are considering getting married. Premarital counselling is the term for this. The purpose of this sort of counselling is to teach couples how to communicate and handle issues more successfully before their wedding day, as well as to “iron out differences.” However, if you’re considering marital therapy because you’re having relationship problems, here are some of the topics that can be discussed : 

1. Arguing, belting, criticising, miscommunication, and so on are examples of poor communication between couples in need of couple therapy.
2. Sexual Differences & Dysfunctions – i.e. Erectile Dysfunction, Different Sexual Preferences, Low Libido, Premature Ejaculation, etc. 
3. Financial Problems – Debt, Poor Budgeting, and Overspending 
4. Parenting Obstacles – Defiance, Learning Disabilities, Behavioral Issues, Mental and Physical Health Issues in Children
5. Addiction is a type of substance abuse.
6. Anger issues.
7. Infidelity

Conclusion:

Conflict can arise as couples go through their phases and face obstacles together. While minor disagreements are to be expected, more complex and more profound disputes might cause a gulf between partners. Indeed, the most brutal confrontations can make partners often wonder if a settlement is conceivable.

Working with families entails providing knowledge, counselling, and coping techniques to families dealing with various psychiatric problems, aka dysfunctional families. For multiple disorders such as depression, psychoses, child and adolescent-related issues and alcohol use disorders, there are a variety of family therapies available. Such families will require psycho-education regarding the illness in question and information on dealing with the index person suffering from the psychiatric condition.