Couple and Family Therapy - A Systemic Approach

Couple and family therapy is a post graduate specialisation. It draws on systemic theories that locate the individual as part of a broader system. This broader system includes family, community, race, culture, religion, demographics, education, sexuality. This is the context into which the individual is born and it embeds relational patterns such as ways of reading and making sense of interpersonal cues, ways of responding and ways of connecting relationally. The individual is seen as one part of this larger system and each part of that system affects the others. This creates a type of cohesive unit of roles, functions and interconnectedness; a type of equilibrium of all its parts.

Systemic therapy guides individual awareness of relational patterns and dynamics, recognition of the ways that no longer serve or have become maladaptive, and explores alternate ways of being relationally. This space includes couple and family conflict, stress and tension; and corresponding issues that can include anxiety, depression, panic attacks, mood swings, resentment, disconnection, isolation, aloneness, issues of low self-esteem, eating issues, substance dependency, affairs, parenting difficulties, emotional and behavioural struggles in children, adolescents and adults.

I have long standing experience working with couples and families both in organisational settings and in private practice. I have a Masters in Couple and Family Therapy from UNSW.