One of the strongest and most odious punishments that may be given to criminals is solitary confinement. Being alone and growing old alone is a fear that has been shared with me many times. Family is held up as a sacred institution, yet for many people family is a stressful, uncompromising, or even dangerous place. As a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFTs) I am a Mental Health professional who focuses on relationships. The definition I am working from here is that, relationship is what occurs between people who are somehow connected. It could be very obvious (parent and child, wife and husband) or it could be broader (extended family, challenges with a deceased parent). Relationships are the give and take between people or groups of people. MFTs focus on relationships because that is where we see the symptoms of many of the problems that bring people to therapy, and problems that happen in relationship are very difficult to approach individually. For instance, a person may bring a child in for services because that child is being defiant at home. Working with just that child we may be able to help them identify their feelings and learn to communicate more helpfully with their parents, then we send them home and learn from the parent that now another child is acting out. This would be because we are working on a symptom of a problem and not on the cause of the problem. The child who is acting out may be an anxiety binder for the family, once that child is not in their usual role that role is handed to another family member. In working with the whole family, the root cause of the anxiety is more likely to be addressed, and nobody gets painted as the ‘bad guy’. There is no ‘bad guy’ because the problem is in the relationship and not with a single person, every person in that system contributes to and is hurt by the problem. Focusing on relationships takes the blame out of the room in therapy. If every member of the family sees that they have a hand in the struggles that happen, then there is no identified patient. Challenges that occur in relationship are very difficult to address outside of relationship. Talking to an individual about their jealousy is not as helpful as having the entire family present when a sibling shares that they are jealous of their step-siblings. Once the relational issue is highlighted each member of the family can have a voice around it. When we send the family home, the member who experienced the jealousy may have a better understanding of how their step-siblings feel as well as a bigger picture of the hand that everyone plays in the family’s functioning. Individual problems have relational outcomes. For instance, a person who struggles with an Axis I or an Axis II disorder will probably have relational challenges. Helping the rest of the family understand the challenges that the individual faces can help the family function better, and relieve tension around the diagnosed individual. This is also true for families in which one or more members struggle with disabilities. The disability does not only affect one member of the family. Our connections to other people are essential to human beings, when we suffer injury in our relationships it profoundly affects day to day life. MFTs help people by working where the injury occurred, instead of in isolation.
