What is Marriage and Family Therapy
Marriage and Family Therapy is one of the areas of therapy that provides help and assistance to families and marriages in trouble. For those who think that only marriage therapy is in order, not family therapy, you may be surprised to find out just how beneficial family therapy can be to everyone involved. After all, once you have children, your relationship isn’t just about you and your partner anymore, but involves the children, also.
The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy has this to say about family therapy and marriage help:
A family’s patterns of behavior influences the individual and therefore may need to be a part of the treatment plan. In marriage and family therapy, the unit of treatment isn’t just the person – even if only a single person is interviewed – it is the set of relationships in which the person is imbedded.
Marriage and family therapy is:
brief
solution-focused
specific, with attainable therapeutic goals
designed with the “end in mind.”
This type of therapy is wide-ranging in the issues that it can treat:
Marriage and family therapists treat a wide range of serious clinical problems including: depression, marital problems, anxiety, individual psychological problems, and child-parent problems.
In many cases, people ask how many sessions are the average for marriage and family therapy. According to the AAMFT, averages break down as:
Marriage and family therapists regularly practice short-term therapy; 12 sessions on average. Nearly 65.6% of the cases are completed within 20 sessions, 87.9% within 50 sessions. Marital/couples therapy (11.5 sessions) and family therapy (9 sessions) both require less time than the average individuated treatment (13 sessions). About half of the treatment provided by marriage and family therapists is one-on-one with the other half divided between marital/couple and family therapy, or a combination of treatments.
If you are looking into Marriage and Family Therapy to help your family overcome difficulties, make sure you find a licensed counselor or therapist.
Related Posts
- Understanding Marriage and Family Therapy
- Who Needs Marriage and Family Therapy?
- Professional Marriage and Family Therapy
- Family Therapy for Families in Crisis
- Marriage and Family Therapy Guidelines
