PSYC36H3 : Couples/Family T
Document Summary
Couple therapy involves the treatment or two partners who are in a relationship together, whereas family therapy describes the treatment of family members jointly. Both couple and family therapy are primarily employed to improve family relationships, but they may be utilized to help improve a difficulty or to respond to a challenge that an individual is facing. From this vantage point, any treatment that focuses on the system or aims to change the patterns between individuals is a family therapy. Corollary: family therapy can involve as few as one person. Just having more than one person in the room does not necessarily make for a family therapy. Whom is present in sessions: who is in the treatment room. Such a definition offers less ambiguity about whether family therapy is being practiced. More than on related person in therapy is a necessary and sufficient condition for the presence of family therapy. Diverges considerably from the core understanding of systems.
