Family Therapy Program - Design for Change

Addiction is a disease that affects the individual, and psychologically affects family members and close friends. Discussing recovery and treatment with your loved ones is an essential step in quitting substance abuse. Before beginning the family’s intervention program, our specialists will help you and your loved ones to understand the origin of the situation and its prevention to avoid re-occurrence. This service is part of our family therapy program

Our family counselors will assist you and walk with you throughout the recovery journey. It will continue till you can make the right decisions on your own. Note that it may take longer before you or your loved ones struggling with addiction to be in a position of making healthy choices. At Design for Change, we provide you with the necessary tools that you and your family may use to prevent relapse.

Family Therapy Can Help

Family plays a critical role in the management of health challenges such as substance abuse. Our main aim in family addiction therapy is to ensure that we meet every family member’s expectations. We address the interdependence in family relationships. Family therapy relies on the perspective of systems.

In that, changes in one part directly stimulate changes in other aspects as well. The changes could lead to solutions or problems. Families are an integral part of addiction treatment. Still, they have to be ready to deal with the consequences of the patient’s addictive behavior.

It is common for individual family members to be worried about substance abuse by their loved ones. The family members also have personal issues and goals. Hence, the reason we serve the whole family to enhance the effectiveness of treatment.

Family Addiction Counseling

Firstly, it involves therapeutic approaches with similar belief in intervention and family-level assessment. Our specialists use family strengths to initiate change in substance abuse, and it entails two objectives. It uses family resources and power in developing ways to live a drug-free life.

Secondly, it improves the effect of chemical dependency on both the families and the patients. Our specialized family therapists will facilitate problem-solving and discussion sessions. The participants may be a single individual, a subset, or the whole family.

Note the difference between family-involved therapy and family counseling. The former educates families on the relationship patterns contributing to the continued abuse of drugs. It is different from family therapy based on the fact that family isn’t the primary therapeutic grouping.

Substance Abuse Impacts Families

At Design for Change, we enlighten the families on substance abuse and the associated behaviors. Besides, we educate them on the psychological, medical, and behavioral problems of drug abuse.

For kids, we provide a unique age psycho-education program that suits their ages. It is vital before they can join senior family members in therapy or education. Note that numerous variations exist in training in family addiction counseling. Some of the approaches we offer influence family groups or generations. Others treat one person, not necessarily the patient.

In our family programs, our therapists meet with numerous members of the family. Our programs are expansive, covering members of a particular residential setting, kids in groups, or even the patient’s spouse.

At-Home Family Therapy Sessions

Even though most meetings may occur at our facilities, we often break this norm and join the family members at their homes.

Doing this help curb the following:

Resistance
Stigma
Shame

Reaching out to the families in their residential areas equips us with a further understanding of how that particular family operates.

Models for Overcoming Substance Abuse

At Design for Change, we incorporate the following models in intervening on substance abuse:

The cognitive-behavioral approach relies on the basis that family interactions propel destructive behaviors such as substance abuse and use. Our therapists offer a behavioral-based treatment plan. It aims at actions that may trigger the abuse of drugs to improve problem solving and communication. Coping skills will also get strengthened.
Family system: This model relies on the idea that families get organized through their substance abuse interactions. To cope up with substance abuse, the families will maintain homeostasis or balance. For example, an individual with a disorder resulting from substance abuse may find it difficult to express what they feel unless they get intoxicated. To prevent this, our therapists are always at the forefront, trying to change destructive communication patterns or structures in the family role requiring abuse of drugs to gain stability.
Family disease: This model perceives abuse of substance as a condition that influences the whole family. It is a fact that members of the families of individuals who abuse drugs are likely to develop co-dependence. Co-dependence causes the family members to allow the patient to continue using drugs. It is an effective method for the general public and treatment community.

Aims of Family Therapies

At Design for Change, our specialists focus on providing enduring and genuine healing to our clients. Family therapy shifts power to parental figures and improves communication. Other objectives rely on the family member that abuses the drugs. Our family programs will assist you in responding to the following questions:

What’s the effect of substance abuse on other members not abusing the substances?
How does drug addiction among adolescents impact adults?
What effect do parents using drugs have on their kids?
Why should kids or adolescents be part of the treatment of parents who use substances?

The Whole Family Should Change Behaviors

We focus on ensuring that the whole family system should change irrespective of the individual suffering from drug addiction. Therefore, we help families make environmental, intrapersonal, and interpersonal changes that affect the individuals abusing the drugs.

As growth occurs, every family member will be aware of what’s happening. Note that family therapy is instrumental in preventing drug addiction’s inheritance from generation to generation. The study reveals that an individual in a family abusing drugs may influence other members to be substance abusers.

Healthy family structures often inhibit adolescents from using drugs irrespective of the magnitude of the peer pressure. Besides, if you treat an adolescent addict successfully, there is little probability that other siblings would commit such an offense. Proper management of addiction at an early age prevents severe consequences later in adulthood. Such effects include criminal behaviors, continued abuse of drugs, and chronic unemployment.

Therapeutic Factors

Several therapeutic factors account for family therapy’s efficiency. Our mental health professionals handle substance abuse in the right context and not separately as a challenge. It is instrumental because it ensures smooth re-entry into society. It also evokes awareness, self-esteem, support, self-confession, and solidarity.

At Design for Change, we provide neutral platforms where family members can meet and resolve problems. Such rational venues for negotiation and expression lack from the family lives of individuals with substance abuse disorders. We create a conducive environment where uneasy silence will get broken in an emotionally safe way.

As our therapist restructures, mediates, and brokers conflicts among family members, they discuss topics charged emotionally. Our specialists ensure that each family member has the opportunity to share their views. It is often so empowering and lays the foundation for better transformation.

Sometimes Substance Abuse is Overlooked

Not that any improvement in coping skills and family life is exceedingly desirable irrespective of whether the patient’s addiction problem get resolved sooner or later. It is a big step towards ensuring that the family is functional and stable.

Family therapies are appealing and convenient across numerous religions and cultures. It is because multiple cultures perceive families to be so essential and value them so highly. At our facility, we assist the recovering addicts with restructuring to prevent relapse after rehabilitation is complete. Hence, our families must be the bedrock that helps their loved ones to maintain sobriety.

Family Therapy Program at Design for Change Recovery

If you highly suspect that your loved one suffers from drug addiction, it is never too late to seek intervention. To learn more about our family therapy program, reach out to our support staff in Lancaster, California.