Your family can be a source of strength, stress, or both at the same time. Thus, through the complexities of family relationships, much of your sense of self and well-being can be found in the connections you form with loved ones—innovation in Aging notes that family relationships play an important role in shaping your well-being through interdependence. The interconnected nature of family relationships can highlight the potential power of family therapy as a tool for recovery.
When you have access to positive and mutually supportive relationships, you experience greater health outcomes. For example, supportive family relationships increase self-esteem, sense of belonging, meaning, and purpose. On the other hand, negative, stressful family relationships increase your risk for poor health outcomes. Through chronic stress, you experience reductions in self-esteem, self-worth, and resilience to psychological distress.
Among other factors, the distress you experience in your dysfunctional interpersonal relationships can impede your ability to engage in healthy coping strategies. Without adaptive coping skills, you may engage in maladaptive coping like self-medicating with substances. Through the power of family therapy, you can address your challenges with substance use disorder (SUD). The power of family therapy can also help you dismantle the impact your family relationships have had on your SUD and psychological distress.
At Rancho Recovery, we recognize family counseling is an important part of the recovery process. When your family is an active participant in the recovery process, it can be a source of strength and healing for everyone involved. Although every relationship and family is different, the power of family therapy can be instrumental in healing the entire family. Through the power of family therapy, you and your loved ones can build a strong support system to promote healthier behaviors and connections. We are committed to providing the best rehab to support your specific recovery needs.
With a holistic approach to care and healing, Rancho Recovery offers you luxury drug rehab to treat the whole family. Through our mission to provide comprehensive and luxury rehab treatment, there is a unique path to recovery for you. As a result, the power of family therapy is an invaluable part of our person-centered approach to lasting recovery. However, you may still have questions about how the power of family therapy can support your recovery.
How is your family rooted in your challenges with SUD? What role do SUD and recovery play in your family’s life? Increasing your and your loved ones’ awareness and understanding of SUD and family can give insight into the influence of social connection.
With a greater understanding of SUD and family, you can utilize the power of family therapy to build a strong foundation for your recovery. Then, you can use the power of family therapy to rebuild those connections with your loved ones. Together, you and your loved ones can better recognize the roots of your distress to help the whole family heal. You can start learning how to use the power of family therapy by understanding SUD beyond its impact on you.
The Impact of Substance Use Disorder on Families
Research in recent years has expanded beyond ideals of parental or familial blame as the primary cause for SUD. Current theories and research acknowledge that a variety of factors can contribute to the development of SUD. Moreover, there is a greater understanding that addiction is not something experienced in isolation. Addiction is not only harmful to the individual but the entire family system as well.
When addiction enters a family, the stress and the rapid changes in behavior and lifestyle are deeply disruptive to everyone. For many families, there is a bidirectional relationship between interpersonal conflict and the presence of addiction in the home. As stated in Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Family Therapy, SUD can have a profound impact on the whole family, influencing breakdown in how family members respond to each other and the process of treatment. Listed below are some of the ways substance misuse and SUD impair families:
- Impairs communication
- Erodes bonds with each other
- More difficulty getting along
- Increased exposure to interpersonal violence
- Disrupts cohesion: degree of closeness with each other
- Increases patterns of conflict
- Pronounced mental and emotional distress
- Changes in family dynamics: family members shift and fall into dysfunctional roles to cope with SUD
- Increases financial insecurity and housing instability
Looking at the ways SUD can impair family relationships and daily life highlights the importance of those interpersonal relationships. As pointed out in Social Work in Public Health, understanding and treating SUD is not possible without considering the impact on the whole family. Your family is your primary source of attachment, nurture, and socialization from birth. Moreover, the interdependence you share with family is often carried out across your life, from infancy and childhood to adolescence and adulthood.
Each family member is impacted by their unique relationships and interactions with each other. You each have a unique role within each other’s lives, like parent and child, siblings, or grandparent and grandchild, directly impacting each other’s physical and psychological well-being. When the well-being of the whole family is left unaddressed, recovery is stunted because the whole of the parts is being ignored. Thus, increasing your awareness of the impact of SUD on the family can showcase the power of family therapy as a tool for family involvement in recovery. With greater understanding, the whole family can heal in mind, body, and spirit.
Yet, you may question how to support your recovery when you do not have a relationship with your family. How can you find healing for yourself and your whole family when the desire for recovery is not mutual? Although you cannot change the family you were born or raised in or force them to participate in treatment, engaging in the power of family therapy is still possible.
The difficulties of dysfunctional and unhealthy family dynamics bring up important questions like what a family is. What makes a family and family? Who can engage in the power of family therapy? You can explore the power of family therapy by examining what family in recovery means.
What Is Family Therapy?
According to Family Dynamics, the definition of family has evolved. For many years, the idea of family was contained in the traditional nuclear family, where there were two parents and typically at least two children. Within the nuclear family, each generation was closely linked as multiple generations, like parents and grandparents, contributed to the raising of the children in the family. However, the concept of family has evolved over the years as multi-generation families no longer live close to each other. Some of the ways greater geographical distance and other societal factors have impacted the definition of family include:
- Intimate partners
- Blended families
- Single-parent households
- Non-traditional family structures
- Open adoption families
- A core group of local families
- Found family/chosen family
Looking at the many different types of families that exist speaks to the fluid and personal nature of family. What makes someone your family is not dependent on shared DNA, location, or being raised in the same family unit. Therefore, the power of family therapy is not confined to a specific group of people. Instead, the power of family therapy is born in sharing, connecting, learning, and growing with loved ones.
The Recovery Research Institute notes in Family Therapy that family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy that focuses on family relationships. In family therapy, clinicians work with clients to address the interdependent nature of familial relationships to heal unhealthy relational patterns for lasting recovery. Listed below are some of the skills and goals you and your loved ones may explore in family therapy:
- Enhance family engagement and investment in the power of family therapy
- Improve understanding of each other through effective communication
- Increase recognition of helpful and unhealthy behaviors
- Expand your knowledge of addiction and its impact on behavior
- Increase your knowledge of mental health challenges
- Improve your self-care skills
- Encourage the respectful sharing of thoughts and feelings
- Improve ability to identify and set healthy boundaries with each other
- Learn how to rebuild trust with each other
- Improve your ability to identify and express your needs to each other
- Learn relational reframing: better able to address challenges and problem-solve from the broader perspective of the relationships
- Engage in family restructuring: help dismantle maladaptive belief systems and rules about expressing thoughts and feelings
In family therapy, you and your loved ones can work in collaboration to practice the skills you learn in therapy to heal together. Moreover, the main objective of the power of family therapy is to increase awareness of the underpinnings of treatment and recovery through education and connection. With more insight into the power of family therapy, you can understand its benefits for SUD recovery.
Uncovering the Power of Family Therapy for SUD Recovery
Regarding SUD recovery, the power of family therapy can have a profound impact on long-term well-being. According to “Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Family Therapy” from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), family involvement can have a positive impact on treatment engagement and retention. Healing happens when you have access to a space where education is made practical.
The power of family therapy expands beyond education to give you the tools and support you need to use those tools with each other effectively. As stated in “Family Therapy Can Help” from SAMHSA, using family therapy in conjunction with behavioral health treatment can be invaluable to healing multiple areas of need. Some of the ways the power of family therapy supports lasting recovery include:
- Can support better treatment adherence for mental health challenges
- Medication management
- Decreases psychological symptoms
- Reduces relapse and rehospitalization
- Alleviates distress
- Increases positive health outcomes from SUD treatment
- Reduces treatment dropout
- Decreases substance use
- Increases relapse prevention
- Empowers long-term recovery
- Enhances the well-being of individual family members and the family as a system
- Encourage positive changes in family dynamics
- The power of family reduces the burden of stress members feel
- Discourages other family members from engaging in the same substance-based maladaptive coping strategies
- Can improve how intimate partners treat each other
- Improve child behavior
- Support positive community relationships
Through the power of family therapy, you can build or rebuild an open line of dialogue between yourself and your loved ones. With open dialogue, the whole family can find safety and trust to ask questions and share their experiences to learn and grow together. There are a variety of therapeutic interventions that can be utilized in family therapy to heal the whole family. More awareness of therapeutic interventions in family therapy can support a greater understanding of the self and each other.
Interventions for Healing the Whole Family With the Power of Family Therapy
Investing in family therapy through a holistic focus on whole-person care can support a comprehensive set of services and resources designed to meet the needs of each family member. Whole-person care allows you to build, set, and achieve goals for well-being in collaboration with your clinician and loved ones. Thus, the power of family therapy in whole-person care makes you and your loved ones active partners in the decision-making process for your care and recovery.
Together, whole-person care and family therapy puts you and your loved ones at the center of the development and goals of treatment. As the Indian Journal of Psychiatry states, family interventions can offer ways to develop and maintain a healthy and functional family. Through a variety of simple and detailed interventions, you and your loved ones can reduce the harm of SUD on the whole family to support long-term recovery:
- Family psychoeducation: Basic information about the disorder, its course, causes, treatment, and prognosis
- Additional family interventions: Covers more detailed information about specific aspects of interrelated factors in the psychoeducation of the disorder
- Learning how to plan for the future; academic, employment, and relationship goals
- Discussing job prospects
- Behavior management
- Medication supervision and management
- Effective communication
- Learning to cope with stress
- Pregnancy
- Marriage and other long-term intimate relationships
- Addressing stigma
- Family therapy: Reduce stress and conflict by improving interactions between family members
With a deeper understanding of potential interventions and strategies for family involvement in treatment, you and your loved ones can start your journey to recovery together.
Interpersonal Healing: Fostering the Power of Family Therapy at Rancho Recovery
At Rancho Recovery, we are committed to providing a holistic approach to care to support involving family members in recovery. Through holistic, personalized care, you and your loved ones can learn how to heal and strengthen or rebuild your bond with each other. Recovery is a dynamic process that continuously evolves with you as you learn and grow. There is no set of blueprints that tell you that there is a right and wrong way to heal. Thus, with the power of family therapy, you and your loved ones can recognize and support each other’s specific needs for healing.
We know how important understanding the parts of the whole is to understanding how your experiences and your interactions impact well-being. Through the power of family therapy, you and your loved ones can root out and heal unhealthy thinking and behavior patterns. With our family program, we have built a strong foundation for personalized care and work with families at every stage of the process. As a result, you have access to a family program that offers psychoeducational groups, therapeutic sessions, and the support you and your family need to thrive.
With our luxury rehab, you can find healing no matter where you are on your recovery journey. Moreover, the power of family therapy allows your loved ones to stay informed and involved through your journey. Now, you and your loved ones can grow with and toward each other rather than apart.
Substance use disorder (SUD) not only harms you but your family as well. The behavioral changes of SUD can disrupt family dynamics and lead to significant distress and conflict. Thus, lasting recovery is made possible by supporting the parts of the whole. With the power of family therapy, you have access to holistic care to address the needs of the whole family. Through family therapy, you and your loved ones can learn and practice therapeutic tools like effective communication, adaptive coping, and healthy boundaries to support healing the whole family. At Rancho Recovery, we are committed to providing personalized holistic care with a comprehensive family program to support education and awareness for recovery. Call us at (877) 484-1447 today.