The Role of Therapy in Healing Family Rifts

What is therapy? Therapy is a process by which an objective party, the therapist, works with an individual(s), the client(s), to analyze beliefs and patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that may be hindering their ability to live a more satisfying life.

Often, clients come into therapy seeking an alliance with the therapist, a validation that they feel a person or persons has injured them emotionally, and confirmation that they have a right to be mad. “And, oh, by the way, can you help me fix or change the other person?” That is the first myth to debunk in therapy: you cannot fix or change another person.

You are only responsible for yourself and your actions and reactions. In therapy, you work on goals and steps to improve the way you engage in life. The second myth is that an emotional injury requires the perpetrator to be held accountable and that they must offer an apology so that the client can be released from the pain caused by the injury. And the third myth is that a good relationship has no rifts.

When we are in a relationship, we will always hurt the person we care for and be hurt by that person; it is the nature of being human. However, it is how we repair and reconcile those hurts that matters. With a non-familial relationship, we often have the option to simply remove ourselves from a conflictual or toxic situation.

Family rifts are particularly challenging because we often feel an obligation or there is an expectation in the family system that we participate in life with the other person(s), so the emotional injury is continually reactivated. So how do we continue to exist with a person who has harmed or continues to harm us?

Therapy is multi-faceted. What works for one situation and one client may not work for another. So, there are many ways for therapy to be used in healing family rifts. I will touch on a few that I have found effective.

One approach is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which aims to change our beliefs and thoughts in order to effect change in our feelings and behaviors. A valuable technique used in CBT is “reframing.” Reframing is looking at a situation through a different lens and assigning a different meaning to the event so that rather than sitting in the pain, one shifts to the lesson.

In terms of family rifts, this might look like developing empathy for the person who hurts us by seeing and understanding their hurts. Do not misunderstand this to mean we should allow abuse to go unaddressed. The process of reframing helps by asking the question, “What can I learn from this?” Often, that means we are challenged to learn and implement new skills to cope so that God can refine our character.

For example, therapists often enter the counseling field because they have faced significant demons in their own lives (I am not saying they have reached self-actualization or perfection.) and worked hard to resolve their own conflicts.

My experiences have allowed me to relate to others in a way that only empathy can. The blessing that comes from helping others heal from their pain is a result of being able to use my own pain through compassion and wisdom.

Reframing may also look like exploring how we might have contributed to or allowed the emotional injury to occur through participation in a family system pattern of perpetuating conflictual relationships without healthy communication or boundaries.

This then is a pathway for us to initiate the change in our dysfunctional family of origin (the family we grew up in) by learning and practicing behaviors that teach us to respect ourselves and others to respect us. We do not have to perpetuate dysfunctional patterns; we can be the change.

Along with reframing, I believe there are two necessary components for healing family rifts, and for that matter, any conflictual relationship: love and forgiveness.

Love.

D.L. Moody wrote the following for the foreword to the book by Henry Drummond titled The Greatest Thing in the World: Experience the Enduring Power of Love (2011, p 10): “The one great need in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to each other. Would that we could all move into that love chapter, and live there.”

What would it be like to live in love? The role of Christ-centered therapy is to educate and facilitate an understanding of Biblical principles that guide us in living a life of peace. Notice I did not say a life without conflict. The life of a Christian is anything but. It is how we respond as Christians to that conflict that is a model to others, both saved and unsaved.

We are commanded to “Do everything in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14 NIV). Love is the very cornerstone of all the tenets of the Christian life and allows us to keep the commandments because when we truly love, we will not hurt one another or violate a commandment.

Love has an emotional side to it, but it is primarily a choice. It is easy to love someone loveable but not so easy to love your enemies, yet Matthew 5:44 (KJV) tells us to “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.”

Forgiveness.

On to forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about the perpetrator. Hurting people hurt other people. Period. We all do it. Do you want to respond from that place of pain or a place of love? See how the two are intertwined? What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is not continuing to allow a person(s) to hurt us, nor does it mean we forget what happened.

It means we no longer hold on to the power it has to steal, kill, and destroy our peace, which is exactly what Satan does when we do not forgive. When we hold onto anger and unforgiveness, it hurts us while typically not even bothering the other person.

Forgiveness is a choice (there’s that word again) to let go of the anger and resentment, the desire for revenge, and the wish for an apology. We can always justify our anger; the question becomes how will that facilitate healing?

Unforgiveness is about control and the outcome, which is power we don’t have. Unforgiveness gives Satan a stronghold, perpetuates dysfunction, and causes depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms. In the Bible, we are commanded to forgive. “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15 NIV).

Anytime someone behaves other than in a Christlike manner, it is a sin, and it causes both victim and perpetrator pain. So, the only way to start the healing process is to forgive. Often, when we soft-heartedly approach someone who has hurt us, it gives them the space to be able to soften themselves, to take responsibility, to explore the need for apology, to make right a wrong. It gives them a choice. It all starts with you.

What are the effects of forgiveness? I love that the Mayo Clinic identifies the benefits of forgiveness. (See Forgiveness: Letting go of grudges and bitterness – Mayo Clinic).

• Healthier relationships.
• Improved mental health.
• Less anxiety, stress, and hostility.
• Fewer symptoms of depression.
• Lower blood pressure.
• A stronger immune system.
• Improved heart health.
• Improved self-esteem.

A beautiful example of how unforgiveness and forgiveness play out is exemplified in the movie and the song of the same title, “I Can Only Imagine.” It was written by Bart Millard, leader of the band MercyMe after his father died from cancer. They’d had a volatile relationship resulting from his father’s abuse of both him and his mother, who eventually left him with his abusive father.

Bart experienced a great deal of conflict and disappointment because of his anger and emotional injuries. He wasn’t ready to hear God. When we hold onto anger, we create a block to living a life of peace. After learning his father became a Christian, Bart was skeptical and hesitant to forgive.

Then, he learned he had cancer and Bart chose to love and forgive a man who had beaten him, criticized him, and abandoned him. That choice allowed the two to bond in his father’s final days, to heal the family rift and the pain in his own heart. Bart had also made amends with his mother for abandoning him and used his life to help others heal their family rifts.

The Bible is our manual for how to navigate the evil and pain of this world. Therapy is a way to implement the proven and effective tools outlined in that guidebook of life. I have never worked with a client who healed family rifts without applying these Biblical principles, regardless of whether or not they identified them as such.

Love endures all things and forgiveness is a necessary aspect of living a peaceful life.

When you die, would you like your last words to be, “If only [insert name] would have said he/she was sorry, then I would have been happy”? Or would you rather your life be about choosing to love and forgive those who hurt you as you have been forgiven?

When we do what God has commanded and no change has occurred in the other person, our job continues to be about having faith that God is working as we wait. Reach out to one of our therapists to help you heal your family rifts through love and forgiveness.