Information gathered and presented by:
Tumchobeni and Beni
Students of M.Sc.Psychology,
Jain University,
Bangalore
In
individual therapy, the person who seeks treatment will be an individual.
However in family therapy, there will be two or more individuals who seek
therapy. The goal of individual therapy is for the therapist to provide some
emotional healing for the client. The goal of couple therapy is for the
therapist to help the two partners provide emotional healing for each
other.
In
individual therapy, the therapist may focus on understanding one person’s view
and experiences. This is to help them to know what they want and to communicate
that assertively and clearly. In family therapy, the therapists will likely focus
on what both people want, how they can communicate that and do something about
it. In a family therapy, it may involve some negotiating and compromises. It
also mostly focuses on communication skills. As with individual clients, you
try to help them come to an understanding of what’s going on for them, how this
came to be a problem, and why it has continued. For couples, you do the same,
but you help them both see what’s been happening in their relationship, how it
came to be and how each of them has been a factor in it, and why it has
continued.
In
individual therapy the therapists traditionally meet their clients once a week
for 50 minutes or so. This helps the therapist in providing some stability for
the client, and creates a place where the client regularly pauses in life to
reflect, evaluate their progress toward their goals, and make decisions. It may
be seen as a weekly review to assess the personal life goals as well as the
progress toward them. Family therapy is often much more flexible, the therapist
may see the client for more than an hour and may meet clients once a month or
after few months. This helps as a way to reduce relapse into problems.
When
it comes to the effectiveness of the therapy, there are many studies that show
the effectiveness of the many therapies available in individual therapy.
Sometimes studies may show one kind of therapy is better than another for a
specific problem. More often they show most therapies can help with most all
problems. As for family therapy, according to a study done by Liddle et al.
(2002) report that the transition from “distressed” to “non-distressed” after
treatment occurs for 35% (Jacobson et al., 1984) to 41% (Shaddish et al., 1993)
of couples. In other words, they get better, but generally only a third or so
are in the “normal and happy with their relationship” range. The issue for
studies of the effectiveness of therapy is that when married couples in treatment
are compared to married couples on a wait-list, the couples on the wait-list
decline into the “very distressed” range while they wait for therapy. Thus, the
treatment really has only to halt the decline in order to yield significant
results, and a statistically significant result may not mean much (Gollan and
Jacobson’s chapter in Liddle et al. 2002). However, Johnson & Greenberg
(1994), however, using the Emotion Focused Therapy they developed, found much
better results. Cloutier et al. (2002) found 62% of couples were improved (less
distressed) when they finished six to ten sessions of Emotion Focused Therapy.
However, 77% were improved two years later, meaning they were in the “normal
and happy with their relationship” range) at the end of six to ten sessions of
Emotion Focused Therapy, while 64% were recovered with two years of follow up.
Thus, with specific couples therapy treatments shown to work, about
three-fourths get better, and two-thirds are “healed” after only six to ten
sessions of work.
ADVANTAGES OF
FAMILY AND MARITAL THERAPY
The
main advantage of Family and Marital therapy is that it involves the entire
family during the therapy sessions. It tries to make each other understand and help
one another handle his or her problems. It gives each member an opportunity to share
information and be part of the solution. This helps in leading to a greater
sense of commitment among the members of the family. In the therapy couple/
partners participation allows the therapist to get more information which can
greatly improve the effectiveness of treatment, also help the therapist observe
and plan approach to look into the various problems. Family and Marital therapy
is also beneficial in
terms of dealing with parent child conflicts. It is difficult for parenthood
sometimes especially when there is no common ground between the child and the
parent, in such situation the therapist becomes a neutral person and offers
common ground and help foster peace.
Family and Marital therapy helps individuals and their household handle
many issues other than of psychologically based alone. It can be used to
understand how each household functions, to identify strengths and weaknesses
that exist in each household system and help set goals and develop approaches
to tackle challenges. It is beneficial in the improvement of communication
skills and strengthening the entire community. Family therapy plays a big role
in helping those with struggling with substance abuse, eating disorders and
depression, severe mental illness, couple problems and parenting concerns. All
in all the advantages is that it teaches
family members about how families function in general and, in particular, their
own functions. It helps the family focus less on the member who has been
identified as ill but focus more on the family as a whole and helps in
identifying conflicts and anxieties and develop strategies to resolve them.
This therapy works in strengthening all family members so they can work on
their problems together and teach ways to handle conflicts.
INCORPARATING INDIVIDAUL THERAPY TO FAMILY AND
MARITAL THERAPY
Just like in Individual therapy which focuses on one
person, at times in Marital and Family therapy it may require incorporating
this individual technique in dealing one members of the family to facilitate
change, confront barriers that interfere among the members of the family and
increase positive attitude to look into the problem and solve it. Individuals are equally
important in a family so it is necessary to look into their area of concern and
conflict and involve them for effective result in the therapy.
Individual therapy allows people to speak without worry
of being judged by a partner. This technique can be used in the Family and
Marital therapy as well so as to allow
the individual express freely and also in this way help the therapist get
information and allow him/her arrange the approach to tackle the challenge/
problems. In Individual therapy, therapist assigns the individuals certain
works or exercise to complete by the therapist in the process of counselling as
part of therapeutic process. Likewise, in Family and Marital therapy, each member
can be assigned tasks, for example, maintaining separate dairies or notes for
couples, use of reinforcement for enhancing positive behaviour for children etc. Similar to Individual
therapy, in Family and Marital therapy psychological assessment can be used as
well; for example screening test, Self Report Questionnaires and Family Heath
Questionnaires.
References:
Niolon R (November 21, 2010) what’s the
difference between couples and individual therapy. Retrieved from
http://www.psychpage.com/family/library/couple_therapy_genera.html
Family Therapy (2014). Retrieved on 8.02.14 from
http://www.webmd.com/balance/family-therapy-6301
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