What Does a Family Therapist Do?
A family therapist is a trained and licensed counselor who may come from several different training fields or designations. Such therapists may be called marriage and family therapists (MFTs), licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs), marriage, family and child counselors (MFCCs), psychologists, or psychiatrists. It may be obvious to state that a family therapist works with families or couples, but they may also work with individuals.
Family therapists may work in many different settings. Many of them work in private practice, and others might work for standard hospitals or those hospitals for the mentally ill. Some therapists not only provide counseling but also teach or supervise other therapists. The public health system may employ some family therapists to provide counseling for low income families or to help shape public policy and construct educational materials for families. There are many different ways in which a family therapist can perform his or her job.
The name family therapist does not perfectly describe the occupation — few therapists commit the whole of their practice to counseling groups and not individuals. Most therapists will offer counseling to a variety of people, in groups or individually. They’ve been trained in school and practice in the differences between counseling a group of people and counseling a single person.
In the context of working with families or couples, the therapist may conduct therapy sessions with all parties at the same time. If the therapist is truly working with multiple members of a family, this would mean having sessions with all members present. Sometimes, the family therapist might first work with parents to get a sense of what the family is seeking. When working with couples, a family therapist could see each member of the couple separately at first, or opt to work with them together.
The goal for family therapy is to look at the way individuals interact together, find ways for each family member to understand the others, and use some instruction to help families communicate more clearly with each other. Essentially the family therapist looks for the areas of interaction that are dysfunctional, where the family or couple suffers from the dysfunction. In session, the therapist can then help families see the areas where the group does not function well together, and attempts to address these in a variety of ways.
There are a number or reasons why a family or couple might seek therapy. A specific crisis could be underway or the family merely wants to find ways of more constructive relationship. The job for the family therapist can thus be extremely varied, since each group or individual client poses different challenges and is unique.
Written by Tricia Ellis-Christensen
