Children and teenagers have unique and complex needs. Sometimes, youth need an extra helping hand to guide them in the right direction and prevent them from hurting themselves and others. Functional family therapy in Calgary is an excellent way to address these needs in a healthy and controlled environment.
What Does Functional Family Therapy Involve?
Functional family therapy involves the entire family in brief conflict intervention to find new ways for family members to interact. The main goals of functional family therapy are to enhance youth services, engage and motivate families of the youth, and change the flawed behavioural problems of youth and their families. Functional family therapy typically involves five phases:
1. Engagement
Your therapist will work to make all family members involved in each session responsive and attempt to establish a level of trust with each member. Therapists want to help the best they can, so they are very involved and available to the family.
2. Motivation
This phase of functional family therapy encourages motivation among family members to create lasting change. In this phase, your therapist will work with members to reduce hostile feelings or feelings of blame and increase feelings of hopefulness and forgiveness, leading to healthier family relationships.
3. Assessment
Your therapist will sit down with the family and attempt to identify unhealthy patterns within your family by observing behaviour and asking questions. This phase transitions from focusing on individual problems to a more relationship focussed view.
4. Behaviour Change
Your family will be guided through communication exercises and trained on parenting skills and youth compliance. This helps improve both individual behaviours as well as the relationships between members of the family. Sometimes, your therapist may also involve other therapeutic strategies, such as cognitive-behavioural strategies.
5. Generalization
This final phase of functional family therapy involves the application of improvements made in the Behaviour Change phase to other areas of life. Your therapist will help family members plan for future challenges and teach them how to implement healthy strategies to prevent relapse. This phase will often incorporate other members, such as teachers, into the process.
Who is Functional Family Therapy For?
Functional family therapy can help the youth of all risk levels with behavioural problems, substance abuse, and issues such as depression and anxiety. Typically, this involves youth between the ages of 11 to 18 who are at risk of, or who are, engaging in dangerous or violent acts. If you have a youth with multiple serious offences in your family, you may want to seek functional family therapy near you.
Is Functional Family Therapy Effective?
Yes, functional family therapy effectively reduces behavioural risk factors and substance abuse. Families who participate in functional family therapy have seen significant improvements in the behaviour of all their youth, which indicates that the entire family can reap the benefits from this procedure.
Looking for Psychology Services Near You?
We understand that youth often have very complex and distinctive behavioural needs. A registered psychologist can work with your family to help your children adapt positive coping mechanisms and behaviour patterns.
At Prevail Psychology, we offer functional family therapy to help families and at-risk youth create better and more loving relationships with themselves and one another. Don’t hesitate to contact our clinic today to learn more about psychology services in Calgary.