Family Therapy
What Does Family Therapy Look Like?
Family therapy is a collaborative process that helps family members navigate their challenges, improve communication, and strengthen their relationships. From a psychodynamic perspective, it explores how past experiences, family dynamics, intergenerational trauma, and unconscious patterns shape interactions and influence present conflicts.
What Can I Expect At This Clinic?
Psychodynamic family therapy at the Centre for Psychodynamic Insights addresses the underlying emotional and relationship patterns that contribute to family difficulties. Many of our responses to conflict, communication styles, and relational habits stem from early life experiences and influences throughout the generations and these unconscious processes can become barriers to healthy family functioning. Through therapy, our psychotherapists help bring these patterns to awareness, allowing family members to understand their roles, express emotions more openly, and develop healthier ways of relating to one another.
What Can Family Therapy Explore?
Constant Arguing & Conflict
Divorce or Separation
Communication Difficulties
Life Transitions
Conflict & Misunderstanding
Sibling Rivalry
Anger, Outbursts, & Violence
Parent-Child Conflicts
Resentment
Grief & Loss
Mental Health Challenges
Parenting Differences
Financial Stressors
Caregiving Challenges
Generational Gaps
What Are The Frequency Of Sessions?
Psychodynamic family psychotherapy is typically held 1 to 2 times a week to provide consistent opportunities for family members to explore underlying emotional dynamics, relational patterns, and unresolved conflicts in a structured and supportive environment. This allows for more time between sessions for reflection and practice of new communication strategies.
What Therapies Do We Use in Family Therapy?
Bowenian Family Systems Therapy
This approach focuses on how multigenerational family patterns and emotional systems can influence current family dynamics. The concept of differentiation of self, which helps family members balance emotional connections with individual autonomy and supports the family in improving communication, reducing conflict, and having healthier boundaries.
Structural Family Therapy
This approach examines the organization and hierarchy within a family system, identifying how roles, boundaries, and power dynamics impact relationships and overall functioning. It focuses on realigning family structures to create healthier interactions and fair and balanced boundaries. This approach also helps family members recognize dysfunctional patterns, improve parent-child relationships, and build a more supportive family unit.
Psychodynamic Attachment-Based Family Therapy
This approach emphasizes the importance of early attachment patterns in shaping family dynamics and individual behaviours. It explores how unresolved attachment wounds and emotional needs influence communication, conflict, and bonds within the family, helping to form greater empathy, emotional security, and stronger connections.
Adlerian Family Therapy
Adlerian family therapy focuses on how early experiences, birth order, and family dynamics shape individual behaviours and relationships. It emphasizes the concept of social interest, encouraging cooperation and mutual respect among family members, helping uncover patterns that contribute to conflict. Shifting the focus from mistakes to strengths and creating a supportive environment can help families develop healthier communication, resolve power struggles, and create a more connected and respectful dynamic.