What is Experiential Family Therapy?
Addressing conflict is never easy, especially for families. It’s an uneasy and uncomfortable feeling, but one that is necessary to move forward.
One therapy method that can help you and your family move forward is Experiential Family Therapy. This approach requires families to address hidden, uncomfortable and underlying issues to build stronger relationships and enhance the ability to solve disagreements.
At Broward Therapists, our licensed counselors can help guide you and your family to create lasting solutions in a supportive environment.
What is Experiential Family Therapy?
This is not your typical “talk” therapy. Rather, Experiential Family Therapy is a participatory approach, requiring families to role-play and use other therapy methods to help solve problems, including music therapy, art therapy, drama therapy and outdoor therapy, among others.
In particular, drama therapy is one of the most commonly used techniques in EFT. This is because, during drama therapy, families will reenact situations that are causing conflict and negative emotions within the family. By role-playing, families can showcase how situations led to certain feelings, with a trained Broward Therapist helping each member work through their emotions, improve communication and build healthier ways of connecting.
During sessions, families learn how EFT emphasizes the importance of experiencing emotions and their family’s personal dynamics rather than just talking about them.
What can Experiential Family Therapy help with?
Experiential Family Therapy can help families with many different types of challenges, including:
Adjusting to a new relationship
Having a child
A child starting school
Children growing up
Separation or divorce
Moving
Financial challenges
Addiction
Death
What are the benefits of Experiential Family Therapy?
Experiential Family Therapy is an evidence-based approach and has been proven to better family dynamics. Furthermore, studies have found that there are several key benefits to Experiential Family Therapy, including:
Engagement: Having families actively participating in therapy makes them more involved in the process and outcomes
Better communication: Families learn how to better speak to one another, ultimately improving relationships between family members
Recognizing patterns: Since EFT is participatory, family members can identify and notice repeated behaviors and problems occurring within the family
Fixing conflict: During EFT, a trained Broward Therapist will help walk your family through solutions toward healing and better relationship dynamics
Stronger bonds: EFT brings families closer together, makes them more supportive of one another and helps make lasting changes
Are there any limitations to Experiential Family Therapy?
Every therapy approach has its own strengths and focus, especially when supporting families. Because each person is unique, certain methods may resonate more deeply with some family members than others—including Experiential Family Therapy.
One way to make family therapy even more effective is by encouraging each family member to also attend individual therapy sessions. This allows everyone to express their thoughts and emotions in a safe space, feel truly heard and bring greater openness and self-awareness into the family sessions.
Experiential Family Therapy at Broward Therapists
Experiential Family Therapy is a unique and effective approach that helps family members address challenges and issues through different in-the-moment activities. At Broward Therapists, our team guides families through hands-on experiences that encourage emotional expression, strengthen communication and build deeper connections in a safe, supportive environment.