Many are under the impression that a marriage and family therapist is someone who comes to act like a referee in a match. People take their disputes to a counseling couch and hope that someone will the blow the whistle and go, Foul! However, there is something decidedly dirtier and more jagged behind the veneer, and that is the thing that drives modern marriage and family therapy-it is driven by science and theory, and a lot of curiosity of how people interact with each other - see our helpful hints here!
Patterns are the first on the list. A MFT is not only a person who sees that someone has left their wet towel on the floor (although, believe me, they notice it!). They are made to be cyclical. Decade-long studies have indicated that families go through similar patterns of cycling, pursuer-withdrawer, critic-defender, problem child-peacemaker. These positions are not arbitrary. History-bit by bit they are constructed-family scripts as precious as time-tested recipes, the sweet and the sour.
So, talk neurons. Talk it out method in therapy is not borrowed only by wishful thinking but it also uses neuroscience. When a pair of people is seated face-to-face, being honest (and, in some cases, quite embarrassing), their brains activate mirror neurons, the small cells that enable people to recognize and experience what other people do. This is not magic and luck. It was action in biology. The therapy assists in restoring how they respond to those neurons particularly after many years of avoiding conflicts or how they bang doors. As safe interactions continue to take place during session, the brain begins to anticipate communicating with kindness as opposed to harsh speech.
The toolbox that a marriage and family therapist is equipped with is that of a scientist and an artist. The attachment theory allows them to learn why other people may run about in search of their beloved ones in times of fear and others may go into hiding and lick their wounds alone.
Put this home: a marriage and a family therapist is not always a referee. They are detectives, they are scientists, sometimes even part-comedian, part-professor. What was their efficacious working? Applying established theories, research findings and the like to become so transformative that you can potentially live forever in a way that the furniture can never keep up. The next time you step in to a session, remember this, you are not entering into simple mediation. You are becoming part of an actual human laboratory. and every experiment is a count.