A family’s pattern of behavior influences the individual and therefor may include the entire family to be most successful. This is a cost-effective and generally short-term form of treatment.
Family Therapy focuses on relationships within the family unit and takes place with other family members present. Family therapy may be the primary focus of treatment, or it could be used as a supplement to individual therapy.
In Family Therapy, the family is seen as a “whole” system, rather than just as the sum of its individual members. As with individual and group therapy, Family Therapy is used to approach a wide variety of therapeutic goals. Rather than viewing problems as owned and caused by a particular family member (also called an “identified patient”), Family Therapy helps to identify the ways that relationship and individual problems are caused and maintained by the family dynamics. For example, if a child is having academic and social problems, the focus will be on identifying the family patterns that have contributed to the child acting out, rather than on working intra-psychically with the child alone.
Since graduating from the University of Kentucky with a Masters in Social Work, Kathy has worked in the Catholic Social Services for nearly 11 years before opening her own private practice in 1992.
