Tag: communication

How Can Family Counselling Help?

Posted on by Darleen Barton

Our family influences our very being and moulds us into who we are today. Everything we learn from them affects how we communicate and interact with others, our habits and how we view the world. The thing is, our upbringing affects us for better or for worse. But just because your family experiences difficulties communicating and resolving conflict doesn’t mean it can’t change for the better. This is where family counselling comes in. Coupled with persistent efforts from each member, your family can develop a stronger bond and maintain a healthy relationship. Let’s explore this further below.

What is Family Therapy?

Family therapy or family counselling refers to a type of psychotherapy involving all family members. It’s designed to help family members understand and improve their relationships with one another and aid in resolving any current issues or conflicts within the family. A licensed therapist will moderate sessions for all participants, helping them communicate better and identify what needs to be changed to achieve a healthy relationship. 

Why Would Families Need Family Therapy?

There are many reasons why family therapy may be beneficial for your family. It’s important to know that it isn’t only applicable when there is a problem, as it can be used as a preventative measure too – to ensure that the family members understand what’s expected from each other, what boundaries are there and what behaviour is acceptable.  

What Issues Can Family Counselling Address?

Family therapy can be used to address a wide range of issues, including the following:

Communication Problems

Family counselling can be beneficial if your family is having difficulty communicating correctly. A professional family counsellor will help the family members learn better ways to express themselves and what they need from each other. 

Divorce

sad young girl with parents arguing in the blurred background

Dealing with a divorce can be difficult, not just for the parents involved but most especially for the children. Family therapy can help all family members learn how to cope with and adjust to the changes in the family structure, which can benefit everyone. 

Addiction

Suppose one or more family members are struggling with some form of addiction. In that case, family therapy can be beneficial to help all family members understand what’s going on, what needs to be done and what kind of support they all need. 

Changes in Family Dynamics

Are you expecting a new addition to the family? Or are you having trouble adjusting to a stepfamily? Family counselling can help address changes in family dynamics, such as the addition of a new baby or learning how to get along with a new family.

Conflict between Siblings

It’s normal for siblings to disagree from time to time. But if the disagreements get past the point of simple misunderstandings and arguments and move towards more profound resentment and even ugly altercations that cause stress to the family, intervention is needed. With family counselling, siblings can learn effective ways to resolve their conflicts healthily.

Offensive Behaviour

If one family member’s behaviour is causing issues, then family counselling can help them address what needs to be changed to improve the situation. 

Depression in Children

Children experience a myriad of strong emotions as they develop. But just because your child feels sad does not necessarily mean they are depressed. However, if it becomes persistent or starts interfering with normal daily activities, your child may suffer from depression. As a parent, you may not be equipped to handle this type of situation, but family counselling can help you understand what’s going on and how you can support your child.

Inconsistent Parenting

annoyed young girl with nagging mother in the blurred background

Suppose one or both parents have difficulty setting and maintaining boundaries with their children. In that case, family counselling can help them understand what is necessary for healthy family life.

Dealing with Death and Chronic Illness in the Family

Family counselling can help family members cope with the death of a loved one and find healthy ways to continue their lives. It can also help them manage and adjust to the changes that come along when a family member is dealing with a chronic illness. 

Types of Family Counselling 

Functional Family Therapy: This therapy focuses on developing healthy family functioning by addressing communication, problem-solving skills and relationships. 

Systemic Family Therapy: This type of therapy looks at the family as a whole unit rather than focusing on individual members. The aim is to identify patterns of behaviour within the family and understand what needs to be changed to achieve healthy family relationships.  

Narrative Family Therapy: This therapy focuses on identifying how stories and meaning are created within a family and what needs to be changed for these stories to be more helpful.

Transgenerational Therapy: This therapy looks at family relationships across different generations to identify behaviour patterns and what needs to be changed. 

Structural Therapy: This type of therapy focuses on changing family relationships with the goal of creating healthier boundaries and ways of functioning. 

Brief Strategic Family Therapy: This therapy adopts a structural framework of family systems to help improve a child or adolescent’s behavioural problems. It is done by enhancing family interactions that are presumed to affect the person’s symptoms directly.

Multisystemic Therapy: This type of therapy is a family-focused and community-based treatment that looks at the family’s environment and what needs to be changed for the family unit to function more effectively. It is mostly aimed at families with juveniles who have committed serious offences and are possibly abusing substances. 

Benefits of Family Counselling

young happy family visiting female family counsellor

Family counselling can offer so many benefits to all family members involved, including: 

Improve Communication Skills – Counselling can help family members learn better ways to communicate their needs and feelings with each other.

Strengthen Bonds – Through family counselling, family members can regain trust and strengthen the bonds between them. 

Resolving Conflict – Family counselling can help family members find healthy ways to resolve conflicts and disagreements. 

Problem-Solving – By working together, family members can learn to work through problems as a team, which is beneficial for everyone involved. 

Defining Family Roles – Counselling can help family members define what roles each person should play in the family so that everyone knows what’s expected of them.  

Developing Healthy Boundaries – Through counselling, family members learn what kind of behaviour is acceptable and what boundaries are necessary for a healthy family life.

Strengthen Your Family with Family Counselling from Professionals at DIPAC

No family is perfect, as we may all struggle with maintaining healthy relationships at times. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t do better or improve our family ties. Through effective and compassionate family counselling, you and your family can learn how to better understand and develop stronger relationships with each other. Start by taking the first step and contact us to learn more about our family counselling services.

What to do if you or a loved one lack empathy

Posted on by Darleen Barton

Empathy involves the ability to understand what other people are experiencing. It plays an essential role in building social connections and promotes prosocial behaviours. However, not everyone experiences empathy for others in every situation, which can have a variety of individual and societal consequences.

What can you do if you or a loved one lack empathy? First, it’s important to understand what a lack of empathy might look like and then explore some ways to encourage this important emotional skill.

Signs of a lack of empathy

A lack of empathy isn’t always easy to detect, but there are a few signs that can help you determine if you or a loved one might not be empathetic:

  • Being extremely critical of other people
  • Blaming the victim
  • Not forgiving people for making mistakes
  • Feeling like other people are too sensitive
  • Not listening to other people’s perspectives or opinions
  • An inability to cope with emotional situations
  • Lack of patience for other people’s emotional reactions
  • Reacting with impatience or anger when frustrated with other people
  • Feeling baffled by other people’s feelings
  • Believing that negative things won’t happen to you
  • Not thinking about or understanding how your behaviours affects other people

Empathy isn’t an all-or-nothing quality. Think of it as a continuum. Some people are naturally more empathetic, while others are less so. Other factors, including situational variables, can affect how much empathy people feel at any given time.

Factors that can impact how much empathy people feel for others include how well they know the other person, whether they like the individual, what they blame for the other person’s situation, past experiences, and expectations.

How empathetic are you?

Ask yourself the following questions to determine how empathetic you are:

  • Do you have a hard time picking up on the emotions of people around you?
  • Is it hard to imagine how you would feel if you were in someone else’s situation?
  • Are you indifferent when you see other people experiencing hardships?
  • Do you stop listening to other people if you don’t agree with them?
  • Do you avoid helping people who are upset, hurt, or at a disadvantage?

If you answered yes to most of the above questions, there’s a strong chance that you struggle to feel empathy for others. While this can be problematic, there are things you can do to become more empathetic.

Causes

The exact causes of a lack of empathy aren’t entirely understood, but it is believed that a number of factors likely play a role. Empathy is believed to be largely influenced by genetics and socialidation.

Genetics play a part in the heritable aspects of personality and temperament. So some people are born with tendencies that make them more empathetic to others. However, experiences throughout life also play an important role. Parents, teachers, peers, society, and culture affect how people feel about kindness, empathy, compassion, and helping behaviours.

There is also some research suggesting that men and women tend to experience and express empathy in different ways. Women generally score higher on measures of empathy.

Some conditions may play a role in a lack of empathy such as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Effects Lack of empathy can have a number of effects. Some of these include:

  • Problems with relationships: People who lack empathy are more likely to have problems in their relationships with other people. It can lead to arguments when other people feel that their feelings and needs are not understood. It can also make it more difficult to form bonds and decrease the likelihood that people receive meaningful help.
  • Poor communication: Not being able to understand where other people are coming from can make communication much more difficult. A lack of empathy can also cause people to misinterpret what other people are trying to say, which can ultimately lead to miscommunication, conflict, and damaged relationships.
  • Lack of helping behaviours: When people don’t feel empathy for others, they are less likely to engage in prosocial actions that might help people who need assistance. This can affect people on an individual level, but it can also have more systemic effects when groups, governments, or societies fail to show empathy toward people who need support.

Lack of empathy can also have consequences in healthcare settings. Research suggests that healthcare workers’ empathy declines as a result of medical training.2 This can result in uncompassionate care, worse health outcomes, and poor patient experiences.

A lack of empathy can create a wide variety of problems. It’s also a quality that varies depending on the situation, so even naturally empathetic people may experience a lack of empathy from time to time.

Being aware of situations where you feel emotionally uninvolved and disconnected may help you better consider some of the factors you might be missing. But if a lack of empathy is a deeper, more lasting problem that affects your communication and relationships, consider talking to a therapist.

A mental health professional can help you explore the cause of the problem and learn strategies that may help you better understand and empathize with what other people are going through.

Note: Personality disorders are very rarely treated with mediation unless there is a comorbidly diagnoses. Eg; Depression which is a mood disorder and can require short term medication.

Personality disorders are just that “Personality” which over time with help from a therapist can be changed resulting in a happier more fulfilling view of yourself, your relationship and the world.

Medically reviewed by Daniel B. Block, MD on September 26, 2021 If you believe you or a loved one might benefit from therapy, please have no hesitation to book an appointment with DIPAC and Associates.

Five rules for effective communication

Posted on by Darleen Barton

Love is not just a feeling. It is an activity that involves skill-building. You can work at cultivating your love for another. You can get better (or worse) at loving someone – this is a choice. It is also possible to measure how well you are doing at loving someone by taking an “Acts of Love” inventory that will help you to determine just how you are doing and focus on improving your personal best weekly.

Conflict in intimate relationships is not only normal, but inevitable and even valuable at times.

Tip: set boundaries for communication when talking about an uncomfortable subject matter

While conflict might make you uneasy, it can also invite you to reflect on your situation from a new perspective. You have a choice. You can act in ways that keep the conflict going. Or, you can turn the conflict into creative tension, which gives birth to new insights and talents. In fact, conflict is growth trying to happen.

If you find yourself working up into anger or crying at the start and end of every sentence, ask yourself, “Where does this emotion come from?” Seek to find reason for your reaction.

8 out of 10 couples tell me communication is their biggest issue, yet they very rarely ask “How can I learn to communicate better?” We are all individuals; we will all communicate differently and words hold different meanings for each of us. Get real! By getting grounded, receptive, and non-judgmental, we enhance our ability to see through our partners lens and experience their’ “emotional life” and perhaps see their world as they do.
We spend about 85 percent of each day communicating, so it’s in our best interests to be good at it. “Do unto others as they would like to be done unto” reframes communication.

So what are the five rules?

  1.       Ask
  2.       Reframe (optional)
  3.       Observe
  4.       Confirm
  5.       Accept responsibility, never blame the recipient

Determine how best your partner will understand the communication: ask how your partner likes to receive information, observe, and/or try different methods and modes. Check-in for understanding.

Tip: Flex your style to meet the needs of the one your love
Communication 101: If you can’t get them on the merry-go-round, get them on the swings!

If you need to talk about your relationship and gain positive relationship strategies, please have no hesitation to book an appointment with DIPAC and Associates.