Family Of Origin Therapy

Family of original therapy

Family of origin therapy is a therapeutic approach that explores how your early family experiences continue to influence your current relationships, emotional patterns, and sense of self. This form of therapy recognises that the attachment patterns, communication styles, and emotional responses we learned in our earliest relationships become deeply embedded templates that shape how we navigate adult relationships and cope with life’s challenges.

Through trauma informed family of origin work, you can safely explore how past family dynamics including unspoken rules, roles, and relational patterns may be contributing to current difficulties such as relationship conflicts, anxiety, depression, or feelings of inadequacy.

A trauma informed therapist understands that many family of origin issues involve experiences of neglect, emotional harm, or other forms of trauma, and approaches this work with sensitivity to how these experiences have impacted your nervous system and capacity for trust.

By understanding and processing these early experiences with compassion and awareness, family of origin therapy helps you identify which inherited patterns serve you well and which may need to be consciously reshaped, ultimately supporting you in developing more authentic, fulfilling relationships and a stronger sense of personal identity separate from your family’s expectations or limitations.

We are all beings in relationship.

Our first teachers about relationships (for better or worse) are the caregivers who raised us. Much of this learning is pre-language based. As infants, long before we had words, we were learning the specific ‘procedures’ necessary for relationship with our significant caregivers (e.g., “When I do this, she comes closer. When I do this, she backs away or gets upset”).

The developing brain of a baby is designed to be especially sensitive to building a template for relationship to support the bond with this significant other. As highly vulnerable and dependent beings, this attachment is essential for our survival. Once established, these early patterns of attachment form a blueprint or internal working model for how we come to think and feel about ourself, important others and the world in general.

These internal working models are lenses through which relationships and behaviour are viewed.

The raw data of sensory input is filtered through these internal working models so that meaning is developed. The person therefore responds to their interpretation of behaviour rather than the raw experience. It is in this manner that internal working models perpetuate the established pattern of attachment that develops in early life. Four broad attachment styles have been identified. These are outlined as follows:

Secure

Will have high self-esteem, enjoy intimate relationships, seek out social support, and an ability to share feelings with other people. Views of others and the world in general are optimistic, accepting and responsive. In this way, relationship to self and to other are a buffer to anxiety.

Non-secure/Avoidant

Manages anxiety about relationships through avoidance of feelings and closeness thus minimising dependence on others by overemphasising self-reliance skills. Failures and distress are more prevalent because there is a turning away from significant others when their engagement would be beneficial. This overemphasis on self-reliance is at the expense of relationships.

Non-secure / Preoccupied or Ambivalent

Manages anxiety in relationship by control in relationships: An overemphasis on reliance on others and a minimisation of the need to develop self-reliance skills. This overreliance on others is at the expense of independence.

Disorganised / Unresolved

Manifests as difficulties with successful reliance on others or on themselves in an organised way. There is an unpredictability in the response to stress and a tendency to rigidly control the events of their lives in order to create some sense of safety. A lack of self-reliance and relationship skills are a feature of this attachment style.

Can attachment styles become more adaptive?

We are born to connect with others: It’s in our DNA. Just as internal working models are created by repeated experience of early attachment relationships, they can also be changed or modified in later life by working with those patterns. The experience of coming to know ourselves within the context of being known – genuinely understood, honoured and cared for – can make all the difference.

Frameworks and Therapies

How can Mind Wellness Therapy help?

Mind Wellness Therapy is a Brisbane counselling service with expertise in the treatment of dysfunctional relational patterns to support improved connection to self and other.

EMDR Therapy Brisbane

An effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma.

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Trauma Informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST)

A highly effective and durable treatment for complex psychodynamic problems.

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Mindful Psychology Brisbane

A focus on increasing awareness of your internal experience to empower your capacity for effective change.

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Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (ACT) Brisbane

Behaviour based therapy focused on building skills with an emphasis on values, acceptance, compassion, present moment living and accessing a transcendent sense of self.

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Art Therapy

The use of creative techniques to help you express yourself and examine the psychological and emotional undertones in your art.

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Building your skills and learning more adaptive ways to manage life’s challenges is an investment in you and your relationships.

Services

Areas of Expertise

Mind Wellness Therapy offers a safe environment and extensive experience across a range of presentations to help explore our psychological issues and shape a rich, meaningful life.

Family of original therapy

We are all beings in relationship.

These internal working models are lenses through which relationships and behaviour are viewed.

Secure

Non-secure/Avoidant

Non-secure / Preoccupied or Ambivalent

Disorganised / Unresolved

Can attachment styles become more adaptive?

How can Mind Wellness Therapy help?

EMDR Therapy Brisbane

Trauma Informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST)

Mindful Psychology Brisbane

Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (ACT) Brisbane

Art Therapy

Areas of Expertise

Anxiety Counselling Brisbane

PTSD & Trauma Counselling

Grief Counselling