Although changing living conditions bring problems in life from time to time, experts draw attention to the importance of family therapies in dealing with problems. Experts list features such as sharing and understanding emotions, accepting individual differences, communicating feelings of interest and love, cooperation, sense of humor, and solving problems without entering into conflict as features that should be found in a healthy family.
NPISTANBUL Hospital Specialist Clinical Psychologist Merve Umay Candaş Demir said that family therapies have an important place in biological psychological treatment.
Stating that medical family therapy is based on the family research project conducted with schizophrenic patients, Demir said that the family therapy approach has developed over time to be used in many different problem areas. "These include Systemic Family Therapy, Structural Family Therapy, Strategic Family Therapy, Psychoanalytic Family Therapy, Experiential Family Therapy, Constructivist Family Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Family Therapy, Functional Family Therapy, Contextual Family Therapy, Solution-Focused Family Therapy, Medical Family Therapy," said Merve Umay Candaş Demir.
A family that can cope with problems is healthy
Merve Umay Candaş Demir, Specialist Clinical Psychologist, stated that healthy families have some characteristics and said, "The communication styles of families, their domestic processes, their ability to cope with problems determine whether they are healthy families or not. When we look at scientific research, it shows that healthy families in every society, regardless of culture, adapt to change, set appropriate boundaries, build their relationships on open communication, support taking responsibility, trust each other and are optimistic about the future."
If your family has these characteristics, it is healthy
Demir noted that the characteristics of healthy families have been identified in studies as follows:
-Sharing and understanding their feelings,
-Acceptance of individual differences,
-Conveying a sense of caring and love,
-Collaboration
-Sense of humor,
-Meeting basic requirements,
-Solving problems without confrontation,
-Ensuring mutual appreciation,
-Gaining skills to cope with problems,
-Commitment to family members and family,
-Mutual appreciation and closeness,
-Willingness to spend time together,
-Effective communication patterns,
-High levels of religious observance,
-Ability to cope with crisis situations,
-Supporting/encouraging family members,
-Clear identification of roles.
Family cohesion is disrupted by living conditions
Noting that order and harmony within the family can be disrupted due to today's living conditions, Specialist Clinical Psychologist Merve Umay Candaş Demir said, "Points such as the development of technology, increased individualization, easier access to information are among the most important reasons for this issue. Today, it has become easy to disrupt harmony within the family. Especially the inability of family members to adapt to rapidly changing roles, such as being a working parent, disrupts communication and interaction within the family. These changing roles disrupt the social and psychological existence of family members. For these reasons, family therapy is one of the services developed to support families experiencing various problems in modern society."
Stating that Medical Family Therapy treats the person as a bio-psycho-psycho-social-spiritual being, Specialist Clinical Psychologist Merve Umay Candaş Demir gave the following information:
"In practice, the patient's relationship with the family focuses on the patient's relationship and cooperation with other health professionals. The main starting point is that there cannot be a biomedical problem area without psychosocial features, just as there cannot be a psychosocial problem without biological features. Medical Family Therapy is a method that can be used not only in the field of psychiatry but also in other disease groups of medicine, and when it is made a part of the treatment, it plays an important role in the patient's struggle with the primary disease and protects family relationships that may be damaged by the disease."
Why is Medical Family Therapy important?
Pointing out that Medical Family Therapy reveals several missing points of existing treatments, Specialist Clinical Psychologist Merve Umay Candaş Demir listed these points as follows:
Descartes' Error; Descartes made the body-mind distinction. Based on this point, physical and mental health were separated from each other and their treatments came to a breaking point. In fact, what is emphasized today is to consider physical and mental health together and to address them in treatment.
Underestimating the role of the family; most treatment methods externalize the family and continue treatment with the patient as their focus. However, in Medical Family Therapies, the family is seen as "a space with strong interpersonal relationships in which the patient lives". Separating the patient in this power field disintegrates and complicates the treatment.
Miscommunication between the family and the treatment team; If there is a chronic disease process and long-term treatments are required, families are excluded from the process, this both worries the family and causes the family, which is an important part of the treatment, to play an incomplete role in the process. Medical Family Therapists act as a link between family members and the healthcare team, which is an important aspect of treatment. Medical Family Therapy practices began in the 1970s and early 1980s with the collaboration of family physicians and marriage and family therapists in the medical field to fill this gap between the biological and psychosocial fields. One of the shortcomings in this field in our country is that marriage and family therapists are not included in the working process alongside family physicians. Marriage and family therapists working in cooperation with family physicians and involving families in the process in hospitals will perhaps solve many problems, facilitate treatment and prevent family tension due to the disease.
The role of family support in treatment is important
Pointing out the importance of the family in the treatment, Specialist Clinical Psychologist Merve Umay Candaş Demir said, "Family support is very important in both physical and mental illnesses that come in the form of attacks, can become chronic, disrupt physical, mental health and social functionality, and prevent the daily routine of the person. In addition to the fact that it is difficult for the person who is ill to struggle with the disease individually, families who do not understand the process, do not show sufficient care and support, or exaggerate the situation with excessive interest make the process even more difficult."
The course of the disease is negatively affected
Noting that when the patient is deprived of family support, the patient's ability to fight the disease decreases and the course of the disease can be negatively affected, Demir said, "For example, when I was working with the MS patient group, I often received feedback from my female patients that their spouses did not understand them, their illness and forced them to do housework. However, MS patients have difficulty in motor skills in some cases and even have difficulty walking. It is important to provide psychoeducation to the family at this point, to explain the seriousness of the disease and to get the cooperation of the family. In psychiatric patient groups where medication compliance is important, it is also important to get the support of the family for the treatment to be "complete". At these points, the fact that Medical Family Therapy support will continue to increase in our country in the long term suggests that it will be supportive to patients and will provide advantages such as the protection of family relationships, the correct guidance of the effect of the disease on the family, and a healthy treatment process."
