Speaker 3
Great question. So I think the biggest benefit or the biggest advantage to family therapy is having the therapist kind of get a clearer picture of the whole family. So, for example, if a client comes in and they talk about their family, you get kind of get a general sense of what's going on or kind of a broad picture. But when you have a family come in, you can pick up on so many things, nonverbal cues or little facial cues going on or kind of unspoken rules or spoken rules. But having that the therapist be able to have that type of insight to your family kind of helps the therapist help the family more.

Speaker 2
Yeah, that kind of makes sense. But what if I've heard that some families do a little bit of bickering, maybe like some families have a lot of arguing going on and that's why they're coming in in the first place. How does a therapist break that cycle? Is that possible?

Speaker 3
That's a great question. So arguing, I understand families are always going to argue. It's kind of what families do. But when they come into therapy, when they come into session, I kind of want to turn that arguing into discussing or to discussions. I think having they might become difficult discussions, but I think that's all the more worthwhile to talk about them because they're difficult. So one of the biggest things to do that is with any family I work with, they'll tell you that the first thing I do is establish ground rules. And the biggest ground rule I always establish with any family everywhere is letting one person speak and letting them speak fully before someone else speaks. I don't want someone to be speaking their thoughts or their mind and then have someone interrupt, and then they interrupt them interrupting, and then another family member comes in and interrupts all of them, and then it's just this loud bickering, and they were pretty much getting nowhere.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3
So I think, yeah, again, having them be able to be able to speak fully and knowing that they're not going to interrupt, it kind of gives them better insight to themselves.

Speaker 2
Got you. And then I know that they say teens speak teen and adults speak adult. And do you find yourself as a therapist, or do you find that therapists are often acting as translators in family therapy sessions.

Speaker 3
That's an interesting way to put it. I like that because I think it's true. I think I am translating a lot for them. But again, that's not a bad thing in any way. Translating is kind of what we have to do. And one of the biggest things to help with translating is using, I feel, statements.

Speaker 2
Yes, I've heard of these I statements.

Speaker 3
Yes, you might have heard they're a little cliche, but they're cliche for a reason. For example, let's say we have a family session going on, and the client is trying to tell the parents, like, hey, I don't like it when you say this about me. You might be saying good. You might be saying it to help me, but in reality, it's really hurting me and making me feel invalid. And while they might be trying to say that, they might really be saying literally of mom and dad, you suck. I don't know why I'm with you guys, but if instead they say, hey, mom and dad, I feel invalidated when you guys kind of say these certain phrases. They're both the same thing, but one is a little easier than the other. Take.

Speaker 2
Got you. Yeah. And where does this thing called compromise come in? I know that's an important element.

Speaker 3
Yes, the dreaded compromise. So one thing about the way I do compromise is I think compromise should kind of benefit all parties equally. If we have one party clearly benefiting than the other party, it's not really a good compromise. But if every party is kind of at the same level benefiting from it, then I think that's a better compromise. But again, some people might have issues viewing it that way. So another way to kind of reframe that is viewing your family as a team. Every family is a team in some way or another. Whether it be a family of two, family of three, or a family of ten, they're all teams. And so if one team member is suffering, then the whole team is suffering. And if one team member is succeeding, then the whole team is succeeding.

Speaker 2
I can see where that would make compromise a little more palatable. Cool. Well, there you have it, folks. A little bit about family therapy that we offer here at Child and Teen Counseling. You can read more about it right here on this page. Childteamcounseling.org Family therapy, thank you so much for joining us.