Because family is so important to most of us, many psychotherapists focus their practice on the family.
This helps them better treat depression and mental illness, because mental problems are often related to a person’s family situation. It is well known that when all members of a family participate in therapy, one person’s chances for positive change are better and everyone benefits.
But the big hurdle for therapists has long been how to determine the
family interactions. The client is often the only one who shows up to
therapy. So the therapist must interpret the family dynamic through the often distorted lens of the client. This slowed the progress of the therapy and made it difficult for the client to fully recover.
Now, however, some therapists are using an almost shocking technique to overcome the difficulties of involving the whole family.
An impactful approach that gets results
A few brave and pioneering Marriage and Family Therapists go to the homes of their clients and stay there for a couple of days as part of their family counseling services. These marriage and family therapists look best at family dynamics and the real needs of their clients. The client is not telling the therapist the beans. Instead, the client’s true state and his interactions with family members are there for the therapist to observe.
Here are some ways that family therapists can help with such observations at home. And here’s why you might want to find a therapist who works this way.
1. More help for parents of difficult children
Sometimes parents will feel that their child needs professional counseling, but most counselors only go to work with parents first. They try to figure out the situation at home and teach them how trauma can affect the physical development of the brain. And how feelings of fear can make children uncontrollable and angry.
Home observation helps therapists more than just working with parents. These visits allow therapists to see how parents interact with children.
Parents can still visit the psychotherapist in their office to first talk about their own loss and grief. Once the parents have talked about things and the therapist has done the home observation, the psychotherapy can progress. Parents can quickly learn from the therapist’s observations. And the therapist can help parents learn how to better respond to their children.
The family situation improves, thanks to home observation.
Some psychotherapists do home visits as a team.
A family in Minneapolis invited a husband and wife family counseling team to stay with them to help with what they considered to be an attachment disorder in their school-age adopted son. This adopted child with attachment issues had been traumatized in a previous foster family.
Even after a few months with this adoptive family, the boy did not bond with anyone. He avoided eye contact, even with his adoptive mother. But when the husband-and-wife psychotherapy team visited the house, he became curious about them. At first, despite his curiosity, he stayed in the room while the counselors talked with his parents.
Later he came out. She got involved. She started to trust. And willingly she went to the psychotherapy attachment disorder office for regular counselling,
Again, home observation created a shortcut to saving time and improving life for the entire family.
2. Marriage counseling and improving communication in a relationship.
Marriage and family counselors know that most couples seek help only when it’s almost too late to save the relationship.
Home observations can help, even at a time when a couple has fallen apart and you feel little hope for your future as a couple. As long as you both want to continue your relationship, marriage counseling can help you create a stronger marriage.
And home observation can help.
One of the first things counselors do in this situation is check for domestic violence. Once they are sure that both partners are physically safe, they move on to improving communication skills and confidence. Because they can see the interactions for themselves, they can help the couple make improvements that would often take many months, in just a small number of sessions.
Sometimes having a husband and wife counseling team work together with the client couple in the home speeds up the reconciliation process by allowing both partners to feel safe.
This happened with a couple who had not spoken for a few months. After observation at home and a few sessions in the office, the couple talked about their injuries and listened to each other. It was a big step towards recovery and a happy future together.
3. Trauma Healing Through Home Observation
People experiencing trauma, especially abuse by parents, relatives or siblings, often come alone for counseling.
But family counselors can help even such people become more grounded and comfortable with themselves through observation at home. The idea is to quickly know the family dynamics. Then the psychotherapist and the client can work together to help the person get rid of their emotional baggage and aid in their recovery.
The counselor may use several methods to help heal the trauma: breathing techniques, desensitization, and eye movement reprocessing (a method of psychotherapy that uses eye movements to help a person mentally process and overcome past trauma), or the model of internal family systems (an approach to counseling that uses the concept of sub-personalities or the multiplicity of the mind.)
All of these are assisted with in-home observation as a shortcut to help the person recover from their trauma. A young woman, physically, verbally and emotionally abused in her home, she eventually left her family for a foster family where she was abused again.
As you can imagine, she was very traumatized. In fact, she attempted suicide several times before agreeing to therapy. A psychotherapist observed her at home as she interacted normally with her adoptive family. The psychotherapist learned a lot from this interaction and was able to quickly come up with a treatment plan.
This trauma treatment plan was a turning point: the girl was able to correct the low self-esteem message she had received from years of abuse. In fact, not only did she recover mentally, but she also obtained a master’s degree and became a compassionate and peaceful person. Once again, home observation made the therapy effective. Thanks to home observation, many people with mental illness, depression, or trauma can get better.
