I feel like the family therapist is against me. What should I do?
How family therapy differs from individual therapy, why the working alliance with the therapist matters, and what to do if it breaks down.
I feel like the family therapist is against me. What should I do?
You've made it to a family therapist and already feel like a hero. But something has gone wrong.
A psychoanalytic psychologist explains how family therapy differs from individual therapy, why the working alliance with the therapist matters, and what to do if it breaks down.
So how is family therapy different from individual therapy?
Family therapy is therapy for your relationship.
From your individual experiences, you move towards seeing the shared problem in the relationship. The therapist doesn't try to solve each family member's problems, but brings them back to the shared problem and how it affects each of them.
Where do we start?
The first stage of family therapy is usually the hardest. Partners resist, and each one "pulls the blanket over to their own side". So at the start, the therapist's main task is to build a working alliance between you.
In this alliance:
- there is an atmosphere of safety for every participant
- everyone is involved in the work (no one is there "just because they were made to come")
- the therapist stays neutral towards each family member and their problem. No one's problem seems more important, and personal problems are dealt with in individual therapy.
This is exactly why a family therapist can't be the individual therapist of any of the family members: it would make staying neutral impossible.
I feel like the family therapist is against me
If one of the family members constantly feels during sessions that the therapist and their partner are against them, it means that either the working alliance was never built, or something inside it has broken.
What should you do? Talk about it in your joint sessions, of course.
"I feel like you support my partner more than me. I feel abandoned, and I'm missing support and involvement from you."
A therapist is human too. Their neutrality may have wavered, and they may have "joined" one partner's side of the problem. Noticing this and getting back to a neutral position is the job of any competent family therapist.
In family therapy, besides you and your partner, there is a third party. And at times you may go through a painful experience of rejection and loneliness.
But at the same time, family therapy is a chance to grow your relationship: to talk about your fears and doubts and reach a new stage of intimacy.
