Family Therapy

What is Professional Therapy?

Professional Therapy tends to be wellness oriented, providing insight and learning how to effectively overcome problems and challenges. In life, we sometimes get “stuck” in relationships with others, past experiences, future goals, mindsets, beliefs, confusing emotions, or practices.

Professional Therapy is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, couples, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.

Therapy is a collaborative effort between the counsellor and client. Professional Therapists help clients identify goals and potential solutions to problems which cause emotional turmoil; seek to improve communication and coping skills; strengthen self-esteem; and promote behaviour change and optimal mental wellness.

Various forms of therapy include:

• Individual Therapy
• Pre-Marital Couples Therapy
• Marital Couples Therapy
• Parent-Child Therapy
• Family Therapy
• Group Therapy

Why do we need Professional Therapy?

Individual Therapy is a personal opportunity to receive support and experience growth during challenging times in life. Individual therapy can help one deal with many personal topics in life such as anger, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, marriage and relationship challenges, parenting problems, school difficulties, career changes etc.

Couples Therapy – Every couple experiences ups and downs in their levels of closeness and harmony over time. This can range from basic concerns of stagnation to serious expressions of aggressive behaviour. Marriage Therapy or Couples Therapy can help resolve conflicts and heal wounds. Overall, Couples Therapy can help couples slow down their spiral and reestablish realistic expectations and goals.

Family Therapy is often sought due to a life change or stress negatively affecting one or all areas of family closeness, family structure (rules and roles) or communication style. This mode of therapy can take a variety of forms. Sometimes it is best to see an entire family together for several sessions.  Common issues addressed in family counselling are concerns around parenting, sibling conflict, loss of family members, new members entering the family, dealing with a major move or a general change affecting the family system.

Group Therapy allows one to find out that they are not alone in their type of life challenge. To be involved in a group of peers who are in a similar place not only increases one’s understanding of the struggles around the topic but also the variety in the possible solutions available. Typically, groups have up to eight participants, one or two group leaders, and revolve around a common topic like: anger management, self-esteem, divorce, domestic violence, recovery from abuse and trauma, and substance abuse and recovery.

Therapy Sessions

Therapy may be conducted in an individual, family, couple, or group setting, and can help both children and adults. Sessions are typically held once a week for 50 minutes. The trust and relationship between a person and their counsellor is essential to working together effectively and benefiting from professional therapy.

Therapy can be short-term (8-12 sessions), dealing with immediate issues, or long-term (months or years), dealing with longstanding and complex issues. The goals of treatment and arrangements for how often and how long to meet are planned jointly by the client and counsellor.

Confidentiality is a basic requirement of professional therapy. All therapy is currently being offered online.

Therapy Specialities

There are many types of therapy. These include:

• Abuse
• Addictions
• Career
• Child / Adolescent
• Debt
• Educational
• Families in Transition
• Grief
• Marriage
• Mental Health
• Rehabilitation
• Trauma

Types of Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps people identify and change thinking and behavior patterns that are harmful or ineffective, replacing them with more accurate thoughts and functional behaviors. It can help a person focus on current problems and how to solve them. It often involves practicing new skills in the “real world.”

CBT can be helpful in treating a variety of disorders, including depression, anxiety, trauma related disorders, and eating disorders. For example, CBT can help a person with depression recognize and change negative thought patterns or behaviours that are contributing to the depression.

Contextual Therapy is an interpersonal and systemic based style of therapy. Based in the foundational roots of forgiveness, ethics, fairness, and morality, Contextual Therapy also bridges intergenerational healing, reconciliation, and acknowledgement into the practice. 

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is attachment based and conceptualizes the negative, rigid interaction patterns and absorbing negative affect that typify distress in couple relationships in terms of emotional disconnection and insecure attachment.

Experiential Therapy is a therapeutic technique that uses expressive tools and activities, such as role-playing or acting, props, arts and crafts, music, animal care, guided imagery, or various forms of recreation to re-enact and re-experience emotional situations from past and recent relationships. The client focuses on the activities and, through the experience, begins to identify emotions associated with success, disappointment, responsibility, and self-esteem.

Family Systems Therapy (FST) looks at a family system, and the relationships between people, rather than the individuals. It allows family members to express and explore difficult thoughts and emotions safely, helping them understand each other’s experiences and views, appreciate each other’s needs and build on their strengths. It can help with many issues that affect the family unit, helping people make useful changes in their relationships and their lives.

Narrative Therapy is a method of therapy that separates a person from their problem. It encourages people to rely on their own skills to minimize problems that exist in their lives. Throughout life, personal experiences become personal stories. People give these stories meaning, and the stories help shape a person’s identity. Narrative therapy uses the power of these stories to help people discover their life purpose. This is often done by assigning that person the role of “narrator” in their own story.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a short-term goal-focused evidence-based therapeutic approach, which incorporates positive psychology principles and practices, and which helps clients change by constructing solutions rather than focusing on problems. In the most basic sense, SFBT is a hope friendly, positive emotion eliciting, future-oriented vehicle for formulating, motivating, achieving, and sustaining desired behavioural change.