Family psychotherapy

The core principle

A family is a system. Each person’s behaviour affects the others, and almost any entrenched problem is maintained not by one person but by the interaction.

From this follows a practical consequence: looking for someone to blame is pointless. Even when it seems that “the problem is him”, change usually requires everyone’s participation — because the others’ reactions are part of the mechanism.

What the work looks like

We look for the cycle. Not each person’s position but the sequence: what the first does, how the second answers, how the first reacts to the answer. Entrenched conflicts almost always have a repeating script that both know by heart and neither notices.

We slow it down in the consulting room. The key moment in therapy is when the cycle unfolds right there in the session and can be stopped and examined.

We work on communication. How to speak about dissatisfaction without blame; how to listen without preparing a reply; how to discuss difficult things without going on the attack or retreating.

We put rules and expectations into words. Many conflicts rest on unspoken agreements that each person considers self-evident. Said out loud, they often turn out to be different.

We examine the distribution of roles and responsibility. Especially after changes: the birth of a child, a move, job loss, illness.

A frequent dynamic

One partner seeks closeness and insists on talking; the other, feeling the pressure, withdraws; the first therefore feels abandoned and insists harder. Both are defending themselves, both are suffering, neither is acting maliciously. Until the cycle is named, it repeats for years.

Work with children in a family format

Often a child’s difficulties reflect tension in the family as a whole. In such cases work with the family is more effective than individual work with the child.

To be clear: the centre does not provide individual psychotherapy for children. Work with children is possible only in a family format, together with parents.

Boundaries

We do not conduct family therapy where there is violence: in that situation joint sessions are unsafe, and the first step must be safety rather than better communication.

We do not take sides and do not deliver verdicts on who ought to change.

How long it lasts

Usually 10–25 sessions; a session is longer than an individual one. Sometimes the work leads not to saving the relationship but to a considered decision to separate — and that is a result too.