*Everything I discuss in this post is based on clinical and personal observances and opinion rather than research or scientific fact, unless otherwise noted.
This post is specifically geared towards immediate families with adult children, whether you are the adult child or you are the parent of one or more adult children. Of course, if you have extended family that you would like to include, they would be welcome too. This doesn’t just have to include biological family members either, just whoever you think of as family.
Typically it seems that we only “do” therapy for a few reasons: I have a problem, my partner and I have a problem, or my child has a problem. These are all wonderful reasons for therapy, so don’t stop if you’re already doing them, but let’s take it a little further. Let’s talk about family therapy. In the discourse I’ve heard personally or professionally, I hardly hear my peers speaking about either bringing their parents to therapy or their adolescent or adult kids to therapy. It’s definitely not an anomaly, but at least in my perception of the world, not common either. Why is that?
Societal norms
We’ve made it normal and common to go to therapy ourselves, go with our life partner, or send our kids to therapy. We’ve just not made it normal to ask parents or adult children to come to therapy with us. And you may be thinking of all the things your parent or child would say to you if you were to bring up the topic. Or even what your friends would say if they knew. It just seems uncomfortable, especially if your family already doesn’t talk much about anything. If your family is open to communication or even a little too open, it can be hard to broach the subject as well.
Family life cycle
Your family life cycle phase may have a lot to do with this discrepancy. Your family life cycle phase refers to the stage of life you’re in. According to Carter & McGoldrick, there are 7 phases: emerging Neal adults, couple formation, families with Neal children, families with adolescents, launching children and moving on at midlife, families in late middle age, and families nearing the end of life. You may be in any of these stages or multiple at any given time! So you may be someone who is in the families with Neal children phase, your parents are in late middle age, and they are taking care of their parents in the nearing the end of life phase, or any combination of them. I bring this up because you may not want to ask your parent or adult child to come to therapy with you because you are either finding your independence or trying to give independence. Or you all just have a lot on your plate!
Accountability and Vulnerability
Sometimes we decide that we should tell someone else that they need therapy. Have you heard that as an insult or as an end to an argument? We need to stop using needing therapy as an insult, we all have issues and we could all use therapy as a tool throughout our lives, but that’s another topic for a different day. This ties into not taking accountability for our own emotional dysregulation or trauma response, especially when it is with our family. We may not have given ourselves that emotional dysregulation or trauma response, but we are the ones who are responsible for regulating ourselves and working out our trauma responses with a professional and utilizing resources. I’ve noticed that often we don’t participate or talk about going to therapy with our families because they are the people with whom our trauma responses and emotional dysregulation act up the most! And they are the people that we want to be the least vulnerable with in some cases. It’s hard to stir all that stuff up, become accountable for your hurtful actions, and become vulnerable with your heartaches.
Specific family patterns
The family patterns that are deterring you or your family from going to therapy together will be different for every family. Some families handle conflict by confronting each other and it ends in hurtful things being said. Other families handle conflict by pretending it’s not there, but it’s always there.
You’re probably thinking, that’s great, but what are the benefits then?
Healing for the whole family
If you were to work out attachment wounds and unhelpful communication patterns with the people who introduced those wounds and patterns to you, how do you think your life would be different? How do you think your family members’ lives would be different? There are many generational hurts that we endure throughout our lives and painful interaction patterns that leave us aching. Not only would you, the one who is reading this blog post, hopefully experience healing, but your family members hopefully would as well. Healing is the broad stroke, but let’s go into more specifics.
Trust and Closeness
That definition of family you think of when you think of the word family, you could have that. Trust is something we all want with our significant relationships and trust fosters closeness. Trust isn’t something that is built after session one, but over time, as long as each member is willing, trust will be built little by little. Taking accountability and being vulnerable is the road we have to take to build trust. See how this becomes a cycle?
Peace of mind
Now, you won’t have to dread holidays or family meals because you feel that there will be drama or ignoring any tension. You would potentially be able to go to family get togethers and enjoy those people and be able to trust that if they did have an issue, then they would be able to use helpful communication skills to communicate that to you.
Future generations
Not only will the current generation experience healing, trust, closeness, and peace of mind, but also any future generations to come. Instead of passing down harmful or hurtful communication and interaction patterns, you could be passing down loving and helpful patterns.
I hope now you’re thinking, sign me up! And we can definitely get that started! But maybe you’re thinking, yeah, that’d be nice, I just don’t think anyone I know would go for it. That’s okay, if all you are able to do is individual, couples therapy, or therapy with just a few people from your family system, that creates a ripple through the whole system. If you believe it is unsafe for you to participate in family therapy, please don’t.
Citations:
Carter, E. & McGoldrick, Monica. (1980). The family life cycle: An overview. The family life cycle: A framework for family therapy. 3-20.
Ashley Heinrich is a Licensed Professional Counselor at Greenway Therapy . Learn more about her on her BIO page.
