What is Family Group Therapy?
People on the periphery of addiction often struggle alongside the person at the center of it. Family members and close friends can experience a roller coaster of feelings with little help coping with active addictions’ turns, twists, and unpredictable plateaus; confusion, worry, frustration, anger, resentment, guilt, and shame are just a few of the feelings many people in a loved one’s circle can experience.
In Master Center’s new Family & Friends Program, patients and their loved ones can participate in a 6-week group therapy series. The series aims to foster a sense of community in navigating all the nuances of family involvement in addiction treatment and explores the effects of drug addiction on family members.
So, what does this family therapy series look like? What do you as participants learn, and how do the sessions work? Let’s break down what the program looks like and its psychology.
The Purpose of Family Group Therapy
One of the most prominent emotions families and friends can experience when trying to support a loved one struggling with a substance use disorder is isolation. One can feel alone in their experience, unsure of how to help and how to take care of themselves in the process.
Family group therapy aims to solve these problems and uncertainties. Being in a group setting with like-minded individuals going through similar experiences can foster the sense of connection many supporters feel like they’re lacking. Guided by an experienced professional, these sessions offer an open and safe space for participants to unpack their thoughts and emotions to gain needed direction and support.
The Psychology of Family Group Therapy
The 6-week series utilizes an adaptation of Irvin Yalom’s identification of Therapeutic Factors that enhance effective group psychotherapy. These factors include:
- Installation of Hope & Universality
- Imparting Information
- Altruism
- Primary Family Correctives
- Socialization & Interpersonal Learning
- Imitative Behavior
- Group Cohesion
- Catharsis
- Existential Factors
We’ll dive deeper into each factor to explain how it functions in family group therapy.
1. Installation of Hope & Universality
Family group therapy facilitates the emergence of hope derived from engaging in the program. It lies in participants gaining confidence that they’ll learn how to navigate the journey, feel secure in their decisions, and feel more grounded along the way.
In family group therapy, you soon experience an awareness that you are not alone and that others identify with what you are going through. “I’m going to make it through this journey,” and “I’m not alone” break through isolation and open participants to co-journey with one another in creating each person’s next right direction of care for their loved one and themselves.
2. Imparting Information
We ask ourselves “What is addiction?” “Am I responsible for it?” “How do I place boundaries to best provide support and care for my loved one and myself?” Answers to these questions broaden our perspective and empower us to make informed decisions to respond and not react.
Imparting information in family group therapy enforces the art of caring, self-care, and establishing healthy boundaries. This factor takes an educational approach by enforcing the importance of these concepts to foster growth for not only the loved one with the addiction but also those who care for them.
3. Altruism
Altruism is a celebration of our caring spirit and usefulness. It’s awareness while engaged in family group therapy that as others explore their concerns and needs, it enhances one’s sense of purpose, belonging, and confidence as they share their experience, strength, and hope with their group peers. Allowing oneself to be a recipient of group members’ care and support can be a new experience they find freeing and invaluable.
4. Primary Family Correctives
When one is in a relationship with a person with a substance use disorder, often, it’s not their initial exposure. Family group therapy becomes a safe and inviting place to recognize shared patterns of responding to—and, at times, reacting to—the behaviors of a loved one impacted by their substance use disorder, both past and present.
Often invaluable insights are gained as group members find commonalities in the ways they respond to the challenges of caring for their loved one, and they then try out alternative and often more effective patterns of thought, attitude, and behavior.
5. Socialization & Interpersonal Learning
Humans are social creatures; we feed off each other’s energies and personalities. In family group therapy, the socialization aspect is crucial to changing behaviors and learning from one another. Group members’ expressions of open communication—such as laughing together, practicing acceptance, problem-solving, and providing validation—become tools to implement when interacting with a loved one in addiction.
Through this, the purpose is to provide a place where family and friends don’t feel the need to hide their feelings so that they can be open and free and find that sense of belonging they’re looking for.
6. Imitative Behavior
Likewise, just as humans are social creatures, we’re also imitative creatures; we constantly look at how others act, and, whether positive or negative, we decide to imitate the behavior. In family group therapy, through exchanging similar experiences, participants can see positive things others are doing and work to incorporate that into their own experience.
7. Group Cohesion
Group cohesion is defined as the sense of belonging and acceptance without judgment. It’s the feeling we crave in groups, and what many loved ones desire in navigating their own emotions regarding addiction treatment.
In group family group therapy, cohesion is experienced through a shared sense of safety, belonging, and acceptance without judgment. When one is absorbed into providing care for a loved one with a substance use disorder, self-reliance becomes the norm. Family group therapy offers for many a space to journey together toward mutual growth.
8. Catharsis
Catharsis is the release of long-suppressed emotions. In family group therapy, for family members and friends of someone struggling with addiction, it can invite a release of guilt, frustration, fatigue, grief, and the recall of painful memories they’ve bottled up for so long; releasing these burdens allows one to move forward, cope, and seek solutions.
9. Existential Factors
One of the biggest questions we ask is “What is the meaning of my life?” Family and friends of someone in recovery may question their life’s meaning not in just the general scheme of things, but what their purpose is as they seek personal wellness while staying committed to caring for their loved one struggling with addiction.
Acknowledging these existential factors is a major component of family group therapy by encouraging participants to accept their human condition and potential against the backdrop that addiction is a disease and a part of life. Through this self-awareness, participants learn methods to balance self-care and care for their loved one as a part of their everyday lives.
Family Group Therapy in Combating Addiction
At the end of the day, addiction concerns not just the individual with the disease, but the people who care about them. With this, many of the needs, concerns, and problems of family and friends can be overlooked, leading to unresolved issues and tensions.
That’s why Master Center offers family group therapy to patients; to acknowledge this problem and provide an extra layer of support for those in treatment. It seeks to further break into the disease of addiction and offer a more integrated approach to treatment. You can also learn more about the ways you can help a family member addicted to drugs in our other article on the topic as well.
We know that we can’t fully treat addiction unless we work to resolve all aspects of it, including those that it affects outside of the person. By also focusing on supporting the people who care about their loved one in treatment, we can strengthen ourselves in the fight against addiction entirely.
About Master Center for Addiction Medicine
Master Center for Addiction Medicine is a groundbreaking addiction treatment program headquartered in Glen Allen, Va. Based on a vision of comprehensive outpatient care, Master Center was launched in 2016 and now includes locations throughout the Commonwealth.
The Master Center offers a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach rarely seen in the outpatient setting, staffed by experienced addiction physicians, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists, and peer recovery coaches. This evidence-based approach, both reliable and flexible, is meant to provide a physician-oriented response to addiction that can work seamlessly in the mainstream system of healthcare.
Give us a call today at 804.332.5950 to schedule an appointment or learn more about us.
