When families call O’Connor Professional Group for help, they are often at their last resort for finding a plan of treatment which will help their loved one heal. What families don’t realize is that everyone deserves the chance to heal and needs to heal in order to support the healing of an addicted loved one.
Healthy Communication
In a home where addiction has thrived, communication may not be at its finest. Addiction is frustrating, enraging, and heartbreaking for family members to witness, which can lead to heated arguments, yelling, or even calm talks which yield no helpful results. Family therapy is a place where normal communication can take place under the guidance of a professional therapist. A family therapist helps guide the family through their feelings by offering healthy forms of communication, like using I statements instead of you statements, owning emotions instead of blaming emotions, and more. Family therapists will also help everyone learn their communication triggers, how to identify them, respond to them, and choose different communication styles instead.
Airing Out Resentments
Resentments in a family dynamic are like gasoline wafting from the kitchen through the family household- a secretive, silent killer. Resentments are the hidden hatreds toward another person, meant to harm them but instead harm the person who is holding onto them. Sometimes the source of a resentment is logical and rational, other times it is not. What is neither logical nor rational is holding onto a resentment in such a way that loving and caring for an addicted loved one becomes hard to do. Resentments don’t hurt the people they are held against other than watching a loved one struggle with so much emotional pain. Processing resentments frees the whole family.
Finding Understanding
Understanding addiction is hard to do, even for a loved one who is addicted. Family members offer ask with exhaustion, why, demanding to know why their loved one could choose such damaging behaviors that hurt people who care about them. Unfortunately, addiction is a complex disease, and the reasons why can be complex as well. Fortunately, family therapy can help support an addicted loved one in explaining the circumstances of their life, the choices they have made, and how they want to change.
Outside Perspective
Therapists go to school, complete hundreds of hours of interning, and pass exams to get their professional certification. Through all of that experience and expertise, it is highly likely that therapists have a different perspective to offer families who have fallen into vertigo of just one perspective. Family therapy brings in an outside perspective to change everyone else’s perspectives.
Let the O’Connor Professional Group take the guesswork out of putting a treatment plan together. Our combined personal and professional experience empowers us to empower you with a private consultation and customized plan of action for getting the help you need. Call us today for information: 617 910-3940
