Family Systems Therapy: Core Concepts, Clinical Applications, and Treatment Planning

Bring your toughest clinical questions. Carrington answers participant questions throughout the webinar, so you leave with clarity on the family dynamics that actually show up in your caseload rather than generic guidance.

Work through realistic family cases and practice mapping patterns as a group. Hearing how experienced clinicians think in systemic terms builds the clinical judgment that written materials alone cannot teach.

Complete 3 CE hours in one focused, structured session. Your live CE certificate is issued after the webinar, giving you a meaningful block of your renewal requirement in a single afternoon.

Counselors provide the majority of outpatient mental health services and frequently work with clients whose presenting concerns are tangled up in family relationships. This training helps counselors add a systemic lens to their assessment and treatment planning, so they can address the relational context behind individual symptoms.

Social workers routinely engage families and support systems across hospitals, agencies, schools, and private practice. This ASWB ACE-approved webinar gives social workers practical tools for mapping family patterns, working with subsystems and boundaries, and coordinating care that accounts for the whole family.

Family therapists work with relational systems as their primary unit of treatment. This training deepens MFT expertise in Bowen family systems concepts, genogram-based assessment, and treatment planning that targets multigenerational patterns and relational dynamics.

Substance use rarely exists in isolation from family dynamics that maintain or challenge recovery. This NAADAC-approved webinar helps addiction professionals understand how family systems influence use and recovery, and how to involve the family in treatment while respecting each member's role in the system.

Psychologists conducting assessments, providing therapy, or supervising trainees benefit from a working knowledge of family systems theory. This webinar covers systemic concepts, genogram-based assessment, and relational case formulation that complement individually focused approaches.

Build a foundation in the systemic perspective through core concepts such as circular causality, homeostasis, feedback loops, and the family as an emotional unit. Understand how family systems theory reframes symptoms as expressions of relational patterns rather than problems located solely within one person.

Explore family structure through subsystems such as the couple, parental, and sibling units, and learn to assess boundaries that may be clear, rigid, or diffuse. Recognize how enmeshment, disengagement, and hierarchy shape family functioning and clinical presentation.

Examine the central ideas of Bowen theory, including differentiation of self, emotional triangles, family projection, and multigenerational transmission. Learn how anxiety travels through a family system and how greater differentiation supports healthier functioning.

Learn to construct and interpret a three-generation genogram as a practical assessment tool. Map relationships, patterns, losses, and repeating themes to develop a relational case formulation that guides treatment.

Translate systemic assessment into treatment goals and interventions that target patterns rather than individuals alone. Consider how to set relational goals, sequence interventions, and measure change across the family system.

Address the ethical dimensions of family work, including confidentiality, managing alliances, and identifying who the client is. Apply culturally responsive practice with families of varied structures, cultures, and belief systems.

1. Register. Reserve your spot for the March 10, 2027 webinar. Individual registration is $60 for all 3 CE hours, or attend at no additional cost with an Unlimited Plus membership.

2. Receive your access link. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with the live webinar link and instructions for joining. A reminder is sent before the event.

3. Attend live. Join on Wednesday, March 10, 2027 from 12:00 PM to 3:15 PM EST. Attendance for the full session is required to earn your 3 live CE hours. Participate in the Q&A and case discussion throughout the session.

4. Complete the post-test and earn your CE certificate. Complete the post-test (required for all live webinars) and course evaluation to receive your 3-hour live CE certificate. Your certificate includes all information required by licensing boards.

Concept 1: Differentiation of Self. The capacity to separate thinking from feeling and to maintain a clear sense of self while staying connected to others. Higher differentiation is associated with greater flexibility, less reactivity, and healthier functioning under stress.

Concept 2: Triangles. The smallest stable relationship unit, in which a two-person relationship draws in a third person, issue, or activity to manage anxiety. Recognizing triangles helps clinicians see how tension is displaced and detoured within a family.

Concept 3: Nuclear Family Emotional Process. The patterns families use to manage anxiety, including marital conflict, dysfunction in a partner, impairment of a child, or emotional distance. These patterns shape where symptoms tend to appear.

Concept 4: Family Projection and Multigenerational Transmission. The processes by which parents pass anxiety and levels of differentiation to children, allowing patterns and vulnerabilities to travel across generations.

Concept 5: The Genogram in Practice. A three-generation map that makes the emotional system visible. Clinicians use genograms to chart relationships, cutoffs, losses, and recurring themes, turning abstract theory into a concrete assessment and planning tool.