Treating the Effects
of Family Crisis with
Family Counseling

Your family can protect you from the “harshness” of the world. An atmosphere of security can comfort a person when they “fall” or experience failures. The unconditional love that binds families can provide encouragement that you can rely on when things become difficult. Resilience in a family can help its members reach greater emotional health. The opposite can be true as well. When one family member struggles, everyone in the family is likely to as well. When family dynamics are unhealthy, everyone may be impacted. 

Like its individual members, families can be susceptible to emotional crisis when weighed down and struck with the demands and challenges of life. When a family fails to function as a unit, it runs the risk of losing its nurturing and supporting abilities.  Home life can become a burden, rather than support against adversity. This emphasizes the need to sustain healthy family dynamics. This can be difficult to do on  your own, counseling can help. 

Is this Your Family?

Conflict can be common when a family is experiencing crisis. Though conflicts, even in the most loving relationships, can be expected, they usually do not happen with high frequency, intensity and without a justifiable reason. Insulting, hurtful words and actions may not necessarily mean that your family is in emotional crisis. It may, however, be wise to seek help because unhealthy dynamics rarely lead anywhere positive.

How do you know if your family is in danger of losing its stability and functioning or that therapy may be right for your family? 

According to King University Online, the common defining characteristics of families in emotional crisis are poor communication, drug or alcohol abuse, perfectionism, lack of empathy, control, and excessive criticism. With communication gaps, an emotional crisis in the family may also lead to poor decisions and avoidance of family interaction. Family members may even want to leave home in the hope that they can escape unhealthy dynamics and toxic behaviors. 

Addressing Family Emotional Crisis with Family Therapy

 If your family is showing signs that it is weighed down by emotional crisis, seeking the help of a counselor can benefit the whole household. While it may be ideal to seek counseling or family therapy as a proactive measure, it can also help your family at a time when a crisis is hurting relationships or causing damage without meaning to. Family counseling or therapy can promote understanding among its members and help restore lost respect and trust.

What is family therapy? According to the Mayo Clinic, “Family therapy is a type of behavioral counseling that helps family members improve communication and resolve conflicts.”  Its approaches have been designed to help families in confronting and resolving the issues that affect them. These issues could be individual concerns that are impacting the rest of the household, even without intending to, such as anxiety, depression, and other emotional or medical conditions. Therapy can also help to address challenges that are affecting the entire home, such as divorce, loss of a loved one, grief, or financial concerns.

Family therapy can be utilized as a complementary approach to another primary treatment to address individual concerns. It is facilitated by a trustworthy and neutral professional who has been trained in treating family and resolving family conflicts. It can be used to strategically transform family challenges into opportunities, reinforce relationships and their individual strengths to encourage collaboration, cooperation, unity, and support.

Carolina Counseling Services – Sanford, NC contracts with trained family counselors who can help. Call today to get started.

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