Main description:

Emotion-focused family therapy is a treatment model developed to empower parents to take on an active role in supporting their child's mental health, regardless of their age, level of motivation, or involvement in therapy themselves.

Throughout treatment, the clinician and parent work together to identify and process emotion states, or emotion blocks, that can lead to problematic patterns of parenting. Specifically, research has shown that parental fear and self-blame can lead to a decrease in parents' confidence in their abilities and an increase in enabling or accommodating their child's symptoms.

When such blocks surface, this approach always supports the parent - without judgment - to transform the emotional states interfering with optimal caregiving and also foster a reconnection to healthy parenting instincts.

In this video program, Dr. Adele Lafrance demonstrates a targeted approach to working through blocks with a mother whose fears interfere with her ability to support her son struggling with mental health issues.