The Session: Family Issues

Psalm 133:1

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!"

Family issues are when an actual or potential conflict between or related to family members becomes a constant source of negative emotions.

• When a family cannot resolve conflicts and and emotional intensity around the relationship becomes overwhelming, it can lead to symptoms of common mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression.

What Are Some Symptoms Of Family Issues?

From Pew Research Center

• Anxiety or worry: You may be frequently preoccupied with concerns about your family and struggle to focus on other things. Over an extended period, this can translate into mental health issues.
• Sadness or depression: Feelings of tension, conflict, or disconnection from your family might make you feel sad or hopeless.
• General stress: You may have trouble sleeping or experience physical symptoms including muscle tension, headaches, and digestive troubles, often time due to family worries like financial troubles or other money problems, or the inability to resolve conflicts in your own home.
• Conflicts with other loved ones: If a relationship with one person is upsetting you, you might find that issues also come up with other people you’re close to. For example, tension with a parent might make you more sensitive in your relationship with your partner. Or differences between parenting styles may affect healthy communication within the family as a whole.
• Low self-esteem: Feeling insecure or threatened within a relationship that means a lot to you can make you doubt yourself and your worth. It can lead to feelings of inferiority
• 
  

Different Kinds of Conflict

Parent/child conflict:

• Parents often play such a large part in our earliest development, issues between parents and children can be especially emotional and deeply rooted.

Issues with siblings:

• Competition, comparison, different relational styles: all of these (and many other factors) can lead to conflict with siblings.

Communication Issues

• Communication issues: You don’t feel heard; you wonder whether the other person understands you; you struggle to say what you mean. These are all forms of communication issues, a common setback in many family relationships.

To reach Tom Russell, go to https://www.heritagechristiancounselingofmansfield.com.