During the last forty years there has been a gradual shift away from an emphasis on individual therapy to a belief that many emotional difficulties people experience have their roots—and often, also their solutions—in their marriages or families. As this shift in emphasis grew, many therapists saw that marriage and family relationships make up units, or systems, each with a personality of its own. Members of a family gain their identities from their roles in the family system. This systems view made it possible for therapists to understand families and marriages more clearly as interdependent, interlocking, functioning wholes.
Marriage and family therapy treats emotional disorders in terms of the interdependent relationships among members. The marriage or family system is thought of as a unit with properties that reach beyond the sum of the personal qualities of the individuals who make it up. Usually, one person in a family or marriage is more troubled; his or her symptoms are more pronounced. The husband tends to feel his wife has "the problem," or vice versa. Mother and father feel that little Richard is "the problem." However, therapists believe that the problems experienced and expressed by the "sick" person are really signs that something is wrong with the whole system. A "heart problem" is frequently part of a larger problem, such as poor diet or excessive stress, and the same is true for couples or families. One person's distress tells the therapist that, often, something is troubling both husband and wife or all the members of a family.
This interdependence between partners of a marriage or members of a family system frequently leads to a complex situation in which emotional difficulties are contagious, one person's improvement is connected with another's getting worse, or treating one person separately draws the members of a relationship apart.
One of the very difficult problems troubled couples or families face is that emotional disturbance can often "spread." Repeatedly, therapists observe that there is a kind of subtle transmission from one generation to the next of inner conflicts and difficulties in coping with life. And beyond this, there are intimate connections between the emotional makeup and emotional balance of married partners or family members. For example, it is all too common for the partner of a chronically depressed person also to fall into a serious depression. Marriage and family therapists are therefore inclined to see the emotional disturbance of one member in terms of a troubled, ineffective pattern of interaction.
Because of their close ties, sometimes one person's behavior, attitudes, or feelings get better while another family member develops new symptoms or problems. We will look at a real example of this in a moment.
Marriage and family therapists have noticed that, when one person in a marriage or family is treated separately, the family members frequently are drawn apart instead of brought closer together. Therefore, therapists generally feel it is essential to see husband and wife together or to involve both parents and children in therapy.
The purpose of marriage or family therapy is not only to resolve existing problems but also to help clients cultivate a new way of communicating and interacting together. Marriage therapy and family therapy of course seek to relieve emotional distress by helping to reduce or end conflicts and to lessen anxiety, frustration, anger, or resentments. But beyond these, marriage and family therapists try to show clients how to complement one another's personal needs. They also attempt to strengthen bonds between them so that they are able to face crises and emotional upsets with greater strength, balance, and courage. And they try to redirect clients' values in a way that will support the personal growth of each person.
How long marriage or family therapy will take depends primarily on the goals of the couple or family. Here are some estimates:
* to reduce tensions: perhaps six sessions