Family Therapy

Family therapy, also called family counseling or family systems therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to bring about change, treating problems in terms of the patterns of interaction between family members rather than viewing them as belonging to one individual alone. Its different schools share the belief that involving a family directly in treatment, regardless of whether a problem originated with one person or the family as a whole, tends to benefit the people being treated, and the therapist's skill lies partly in guiding conversation so as to draw out the family's own strengths and support. As the field has developed, its working definition of family has broadened from the traditional model of parents and children to include long-term, strongly supportive relationships between people who may or may not be related by blood or marriage.