When you are suffering from a substance use disorder, it might seem like you are going it alone with no one to help you. Or you may find yourself so focused on yourself and your need to drink or use drugs that you shut everyone else out. Either way, it might feel like the only person affected by your addiction is you.
But that simply isn’t true. Your substance use disorder has a significant impact on the people around you. That includes your friends and acquaintances. It includes your coworkers, your customers, and your clients. If your behavior is erratic, the impact can even affect people like your barista at the coffee shop.
But what group of people are most affected, hands down? The members of your family.
Fortunately, family systems therapy can help every family member work toward solutions to problems caused by a substance use disorder. This can strengthen family bonds and help heal wounds that might otherwise undermine a family’s connection to one another.
Family Systems Therapy: What Is It?
Family systems therapy has its origins in the work of psychiatrist Murray Bowen in the 1950s. While working at the National Institute of Mental Health, Bowen outlined the guiding principles of family systems therapy. While Bowen’s work focused perhaps too much on how birth order might affect behavior (he’s the source of the idea, for example, that first children are nearly always overachievers), his research on how different members of a family interact with one another and the effects of those interactions continues to be relevant today.
In Bowen’s view, everyone in the family has a role to play. When a member isn’t successfully filling their role–or misunderstanding their role–it affects the entire family and can lead to destructive patterns.
In the family systems therapy model, a trained therapist helps a family work collaboratively to define their roles and to identify strategies for providing support when someone in the family is struggling—not just with the substance use disorder itself, but with the many ways the disorder can stress individuals and the family as a whole.
The goal of family systems therapy is to address long-standing issues and rebuild trust. The person with the substance use disorder—ideally now in recovery—may have lots of work to do to repair relationships, but in family systems therapy, they don’t bear that responsibility alone. Everyone in the family is working toward the same goals.
That may lead to some difficult conversations and confrontations. For example, it may turn out that a parent has been enabling a child’s addiction. Or perhaps a sibling’s relentless teasing has severely damaged a person’s self-esteem. Maybe the family is in desperate need of finding better ways to communicate with one another so that they can provide support where it is needed the most.
Beyond Substance Use Disorders
It may have occurred to you by now that family systems therapy can be helpful in all kinds of situations—not just those that involve a substance use disorder. Anxiety, eating disorders, financial pressures, chronic illness, divorce, or the death of a family member are all issues that might be addressed via family systems therapy. No matter what issue is being addressed, family systems therapy ensures that every person’s voice is heard and that their needs are better understood and met. Over time, this strengthens family ties and better equips the family—as individuals and as a unit—to successfully weather hard times.
We Can Help You—And We Can Help Your Family
At Wooded Glen Recovery Center, we care about all of the members of a family who are impacted by a person’s substance use disorder. As part of our personalized approach to treatment, we will assess whether family systems therapy is a good option for your family. If it is, we have all the resources and expertise necessary to get you started. The Wooded Glen family promises to do all we can to support you and your family.