Family Counselling In Family Counselling

Family counselling is a distinctive genre of counselling, in which family and couples are treated as a single unit, whose functioning heavily relies on the dynamics of their interpersonal relationships. To assess the impending issues the family brings to the counselling session, family counsellors often conceptualise these issues through different theories that focuses on relational and interpersonal aspects, whilst attempting to identify the influence of intergenerational patterns, culture, personal beliefs and values of individuals who form the family unit. This essay presents an analytical overview of a roleplay (video) session recorded to demonstrate my ability as a student counsellor to provide couple’s counselling to a gay couple. It will aim to outline the presenting issue, conceptualising it through the lens of systemic and attachment theories of

Minuchin (1998) propagates family system as being a multifarious integrated singular, where individual members are interdependent and exert a continuous and reciprocal influence on each other (as cited in Cox & Paley, 1997). Systems theory formulates the idea that every family is governed by rules, which can be either spoken or unspoken. It states that as systems family tend to have boundaries, which are semi-permeable, monitoring transactions where some are permitted and others are not. Maintaining communication between members or parts of the system is paramount to the functioning of the system (Barker, 2013). Systems theory proposes to maintain functionality, family members try to achieve a steady state of equilibrium, classified as homeostasis (Nichols & Schwartz, 2008). The change in one family member requires other family member to adapt to the new situation, which in turn poses a risk to the stability of