Should You Bring Your Fam To Therapy?
Cue your favorite relationship or family comedy and if there’s a therapy scene, it’s guaranteed to hold the big belly laughs and most relatable moments of the entire feature. But real life is a drama, and group sessions can be some of the most uncomfortable and complex work you’ll ever do.
“It can actually be a disservice to bring people in if the time or situation isn’t quite right,” says Greg Lamont, clinical director at Juniper Mountain Counseling in Bend, Oregon. So before you make the decision between individual support, couples counseling, or full-on family sessions, take inventory of the main challenges you’re facing.
“If the primary areas of function being impacted have to do with taking care of yourself or showing up at work, focusing on yourself with a therapist will likely benefit you most,” says Lamont. Alternatively, if you’re finding yourself in frequent conflict with your partner or family—be it parents, siblings, or children—the next big Q is: Do they also believe that there’s a problem in your dynamic? Straight up ask them if you can’t confidently answer..
Either way, “you can’t go wrong with individual therapy first,” says Lamont, as it generally provides tools for emotional regulation that can help you steer relational problems. After that, bringing a plus one to the party can be a better way to navigate patterns of disconnection, because you alone can’t change those (sorry).
The more people who enter the group chat, however, the more messy things can become before they get better, notes Tory Eletto, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Larchmont, New York, and it can limit your own personal journey by focusing too much on others.
For this reason, rather than pursue consistent family therapy, Lamont suggests inviting family members to a few sessions with your own therapist, who can help vouch for your good intentions and intervene on your behalf. Your therapist can refer you as a couple or family to another, more specialized clinician if they think a few one-off sessions together might not be enough.
Now, if you have a loved one who’s resistant to the idea, breathe—and know that it’s so common, especially among men, to reject or fear the idea of professional help. (Stats vary, but most show that women are around twice as likely than men to seek therapy.) “Remember that our behaviors are always self-protective,” says Vienna Pharaon, a licensed marriage and family therapist in New York and author of The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love.
Instead of taking any refusal or lack of interest as a sign they don’t care about your relationship, “I would be curious about what’s keeping them from wanting to join you.”
Some people assume therapy will make things worse by bringing up buried events, or that they’ll be painted in a bad light (perhaps because they were ridiculed as children).
“Seeing them through a lens of insecurity can offer grace and compassion and open up a conversation around it, which in itself, is an opportunity to connect and deepen your understanding of each other,” Pharaon explains. From there, it can be easier to get them to commit to one joint session so they can at least experience it before judging.
Another trick? Help them get a proper sense of what therapy might feel like through a podcast or book, especially one that features a celebrity or athlete they admire. There are tons of resources out there, and it only takes one session to start to break through unfounded fears.
Next Article: What It's Really Like To Be A Therapist
Photography by Lauren Coleman. Prop Styling by Jenna Tedesco.
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