Systemic Intervention at KIN & KiDS Marriage, Family and Child Therapy Center
At Kin & Kids our therapists utilize a systemic-based approach when working with our clients. While we do see many clients for individual therapy, as and where it will be helpful and possible, we see family members together or occasional invite family members to join in the session. With our child/teen clients, parents are an integral part of the therapy and we will involve them as much as possible. We work as a team according to different specialities to provide coordinated evaluation and treatment plans for the different parts of the family system.
Systemic intervention works on the systems theory in which the behaviour of a system can be understood by considering the characteristics of elements within the system and the relationship between these elements. Individual experience is often seen as fundamentally interpersonal, rather than intrapersonal however psychological distress is viewed as being intimately bound up with relationships. Any particular ‘problem’ is not seen as a problem per se, but part of a larger process involving many other people, behaviours, and meanings. Systemic approach to therapy recognizes the interconnected and relational nature of mental health.
Through systemic intervention there is an interest in how different members of a system for example a family communicate with each other: what and how things are expressed, and what goes unexpressed. Observing communication between different members of a system can help understand how family member in a family system relate to one another and this acts as a key area for intervention to begin. It also shows the patterns that are involved in this family. Through evaluating a family system, the therapist can have a more integrated and holistic perspective.
Systemic intervention can help change the organisation of boundaries and related closeness or distance between family members and subsystems which in turns affects an individual members experience. Through systematic intervention the therapist can help improve the function in a family system and formulate effective solutions by disrupting unhelpful interactional patterns among family members.