restorative family therapy

Last reviewed 01/2018

Restorative family therapy is applied in situations where the family is so undermined by a crisis that therapeutic intervention is required to restore health functioning. Examples of events that might provoke a family crisis include death of a family member, imprisonment of a family member and redundancy of a family member.

This form of therapy has many similarities to crisis therapy that is applied to the individual. It is a short-term treatment in which behavioural, cognitive and counselling techniques are employed to restore effective coping in a family which has been (or is in danger of being) overwhelmed by events which it does not have the psychological resources to cope with.