{Family Systems Approach To Marriage Therapy

Quite a lot of husbands and wives end up with marital issues that they don’t know how to sort out. Actually there are more married couples going through relationship difficulties that they need help fixing than there are persons suffering from several psychological problems that are common in our community today.

Marriage is an important ingredient of a family’s life in our culture. Challenges and issues which the couple is not able to handle on their own can cause unhappiness and separation. The problems and misery the couple are going through does not only affect themselves in a negative way, but also the family and people they love. By using a family systems approach to marital counseling, pastors or counselors can help these couples solve their conflicts or emotional issues.

Family systems theory is also referred to as Bowen theory. Murray Bowen, MD was a psychiatrist and the man who designed this theory of human behavior. The Bowen theory can potentially change the treatment approach from a focus on one individual to a focus on the family as a whole, as well as on the society as a whole.

The family systems approach is what laid the foundation for family counseling. One of the main principles of family counseling is that a person’s behavior affects their family and the whole environment, but is also influenced by their environment. So instead of focusing on just one person, the focus is shifted to the whole family. However family systems counseling can be given to just one individual person. Family systems counseling is defined by the focus of the therapy model and not the number of persons taking part in counseling. Actually, more often than not it is given to one client who wants to change the way she or he is functioning within the family.

All families have their own rules that gradually alter over time when the family members and their needs and wants are altering. These rules can be unspoken and spoken.

In each family certain behavioral patterns are usually found and the family members usually play certain roles. These patterns often are repeated over and over in and endless cycle until the couple is becoming aware of what is happening so they can break this pattern and start healing their relationship. For example, one of the individuals in the family may have a behavior of withdrawing when another is nagging. When one of the family members are nagging, the other person is withdrawing, which will cause the person to keep nagging and the other person will just withdraw even more. In family systems therapy, there is no point in trying to figure out who started the negative behavioral pattern or blame anyone. When one individual is becoming aware of the pattern and trying to change his or her behavior, the other family members will respond to this change and thus the whole family dynamics will change.

Tina Hanson is blogging at Christian Marriage Counseling Info. To learn more about the family systems approach to marital counseling