Family counseling isn’t as common as it needs to be. Many families take no effort to acknowledge the problems that they might have as a family. Everyone likes to pretend that their family is alright which in turn is the root cause for families falling apart. If you want to make something right, the first step is to acknowledge the existence of a problem.
Just because your family is going for family counseling and another family isn’t, doesn’t mean that their family is perfect. They might just be refusing to do something about it. People like turning a blind eye to the issues in their family to save face in society. What we fail to realize is that at the end of the day, our family is all we have.
Not all families are stable, healthy, and happy all the time and that is the hard truth. The effect of a broken family stays with people all their lives. It might initially feel like admitting defeat or failure, but in reality, it is the right step to take for a better future for yourself and the other members of the family. Many families suffer from built-in resiliency to many problems but fighting it is the best thing you could do.
If any of the family members have difficulty functioning in their normal capacity and you can feel an energy drain in your family, then it is time to sit down and think about it. If communicating has dwindled down over the past years and it has been getting more and more difficult to communicate among the members of the family, then it is time to find out why. If any member is withdrawing from the family life or your usual family activities, then it is time to understand what has brought that on.
Start out by reading about symptoms reasons for families that need family counseling. Pages like Regain.us talk about all the reasons why you and your family need to attend family counseling. Need for family counseling can be triggered by many reasons such as family members having substance abuse problems, the family having a traumatic experience, changes in children’s behavior, family member’s violent behavior, family members feeling hopelessness or helplessness, financial stress. Etc.
Every family has different issues to deal with. One thing you shouldn’t do is compare your family to other families; this is one way you neglect the problems that your family is going through. Just because your family doesn’t have the same problems as some other family, doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems to solve. A dysfunctional family looks different to everyone. Needs of everyone are different, do not treat them the same.
Counseling of any sort has a stigma attached to it. Nobody wants to believe that they have a problem and they need help. It makes us feel weak. But, we have to look at the bigger picture here. To not feel weak temporarily, we risk making our family weak in the long run. If you see any sign of your family falling through the cracks, take action. Don’t wait till it is too late.