Most behaviour that persists into adulthood develop within the context of our families of origin. Yet, marriage, couples, and family therapy often remain an overlooked branch of mental health.
Couples and family therapy departs radically from traditional mental health in that it looks to the family or the relationship and the context in which it is embedded to understand mental health issues, rather than focusing solely at an individual as the source of mental health problems. In other words, as a model of mental health treatment, couples and family therapy take a systemic perspective on emotional problems and psychopathology. It therefore typically involves that the therapist meets with either both spouses together or all members of the family to resolve the problems impacting their relationship and experiences.
This allows for the therapist to examine the context in which individuals live. It is this context that shapes meaning in the lives of individuals, couples, and families. To understand illness or dysfunction, one should investigate the web of partner and family communications with which a person lives. In order to understand couples and families, we must study the members in relationship to one another. It is this relationship between individuals and family members that makes each relationship and family unique.
The benefit of couples and family therapy may include, but not be limited to:
• understand how we recreate in our adult relationships the patterns that we learned in childhood;
• learn about the contexts in which couples and families are embedded such as gender, culture, spirituality, and sexual orientation and preferences;
• learn about yourself while exploring the context in which you grew up.