One of the most common and helpful approaches to dealing with enmeshed families is structural family therapy. Growing up in an enmeshed family can make it difficult to form and maintain healthy relationships free from enmeshment. In structural family therapy, the therapist will meet with various family members to talk through family systems. This information helps the therapist understand how the family addresses interpersonal conflict and solutions. Based on the answers, the therapist offers advice and a plan of action to undo any enmeshment. The plan of action focuses on setting, maintaining and respecting specific boundaries of each family member.

Unhealthy patterns tend to be passed down through multiple generations when enmeshed relationships exist. With the help of a family therapist, people in enmeshed relationships as a child can avoid unhealthy relationship patterns as an adult. Without the help of a family therapist, children who grew up in enmeshed families usually carry the same patterns into their own families. Individual counseling can also help a person who was raised by an enmeshed parent.

Family therapy can also help when enmeshment occurs due to a parent’s reaction to a child’s illness or trauma. Parents often feel an intense desire to keep their child safe from further harm, creating enmeshed relationships that cause a lifetime of confusion and conflict.

Working to overcome enmeshment is a process that takes time, so it is important to be gentle with yourself as you explore who you are and who you want to be outside of an enmeshed family. The therapist will work to help you understand that there are other truths that exist outside of the ones you were raised in and understand to be “normal.” You will work to understand that the relationships within an enmeshed family were not healthy.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
– Maya Angelou