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What Is a Family Retreat?

An individualized family retreat is a therapeutic experience crafted by a mental health professional or coach tailored to meet the needs of a particular family for a period of several days or even more. Almost any family can be a candidate for a retreat, particularly if a member is struggling, suffering, or stuck and the family wishes to work together to offer support.

Common candidates for family retreats include:

• Families that have experienced loss or some other unresolved problem or difficult issues.
• Families unable to establish or maintain healthy expectations for one another or allow “messy” growth and development of each person at their own pace.
• Families with a member “getting by” but not thriving who do not know why or how to help.

Family retreats are a state-of-the-art modality that can enhance and strengthen family functioning and relationships. They are an exciting way to help a whole family develop an improved way of being, to help each person see the others for who they are, to relate in non-confrontational and supportive ways without giving up their own needs, and to find approaches to deal with difficult questions together.

Setting and Structure

Retreats are defined by a therapist or coach creating an individualized experience in which they work with the family for a period of several days. This may occur in a wilderness setting, an inn, or a rented home, but often they occur in a rural area that offers the opportunity for adventure experiences. Sometimes the setting might be a city for a family that lives in a rural area. The setting, like the content, is individualized.

Therapeutic programs often have family retreats, and schools and colleges have family weekends. These are useful to provide psychoeducation, an introduction to therapeutic treatment, and an opportunity to connect with other parents in similar situations. However, the retreats we are discussing here are different. They focus on one family—enhancing their way of being as a unit and helping explicate and address the issues and struggles that any individual member may be experiencing.

Families may consider a retreat if an individual member or even all of them are stuck as individuals or as a family unit. Often treatment program providers find families unable to make the step to commit when one of them could benefit from participating. They may be fearful of moving toward treatment or have had negative past experiences. In a family retreat, they can explore these feelings and find a way to demonstrate hope and belief in one another. At the same time, no one person is stigmatized.

Parental anxiety has a spiraling effect on adolescents and adult children, often leading to a loss of confidence in their ability to parent—and they need to develop a sense of self-efficacy. Within the structure of a retreat, they can observe the coach or therapist interact with their children, whether adolescents or adults, and put these new methods into practice.

The retreat setting can be helpful for any family by enhancing the way family members relate, the way they deal with difficult situations, and the ways they have fun together.

The length of time for a retreat can be very individualized but typically three days is effective. This allows time for therapy sessions and unstructured time for the family to experience adventures together or at least some activity that is engaging.

Retreats in the Treatment Timeline

Retreats can be helpful either before, during, or after treatment; as a transition or instead of treatment; or even post-treatment as a refresh. Some specific issues that can be addressed for families:

• Identify specific mores and patterns that they hadn’t otherwise seen.
• Deal with specific issues like grief or transition.
• Assess the needs and impact of a specific, struggling family member.
• Learn to work together instead of singling out a specific identified patient.
• Experience a unique adventure in a novel environment in order to strengthen bonds and learn about one another.

Retreats in this sense are different in nature and effects from group retreats or family workshops within a therapeutic program. They allow the therapist or coach who is running the program to address the specific needs of one family and provide multiple opportunities for participants to see and experience how the therapist interacts with individual family members effectively. They can practice interacting with one another in similar ways. For example, if one struggling adolescent resists answering a particular question, they can say “pass” and not be pressured to respond. They will usually respond eventually. Parents see a new way of interacting—the therapist does not panic at an individual response and eventually the identified family member does feel safe to respond. Parents can experience and practice how to help one another feel safe and seen, which leads to more openness and finding a way of being.

Many families exhibit reluctance to enroll a young person in treatment. There is a great deal of anxiety floating around in our society and this is one reflection of that. In addition, there are multiple reasons that parents may hesitate to send an adolescent or adult child to a treatment program.

Sometimes, it is not necessary, and instead a family retreat can be a jump-start to working together to improve family dynamics and help any struggling family members to move forward. Seeing a person for who they are and helping them feel safe can alleviate the need for residential treatment.

A retreat can also be helpful as a “tune-up” after treatment at any time. Retreats can be followed by mentoring, coaching, or therapy for the family as a whole or individuals. This can sometimes be as effective as a residential placement, especially if participants are patient and allow “messiness” to exist and occur.

If a retreat precedes treatment, it can be useful not only for assessment of what is going on and what the problem is, but also to what the clients respond most effectively, distinguishing family dynamics, and individual issues.

At any point, they are extremely helpful in increasing the confidence of parents—allowing and encouraging them to open up in a safe environment, to be honest about how they have been feeling in their roles within the family and individually, and in relationship to someone who is struggling. They can help the family realize why treatment is a gift and not a punishment and allay parents’ potential guilt about “sending” someone to a treatment program. Often parents are stuck in the role of victims—victims of their child’s limitations, suffering, or struggles—and are complacent in that negative situation. Sometimes they are colluding with the struggling young person or are afraid.

There is also a role for retreats in all transitions within and after treatment—or even such milestones as the end of a school year or graduation. Together, families can create and experience a way of being that works, with realistic expectations for one another, open communication, and a sense of fun. This can be especially helpful after someone has participated in a treatment program away from home.

Parents often feel anxious about how they can both relate effectively and honor their own boundaries when they are all living together, or even if living separately, without the structure and support of a program.

Retreats can also be helpful after treatment to help reset the family dynamics and prepare people for the ups and downs that may occur. Emotional growth doesn’t occur in a straight line. Often after a family member has been in treatment and demonstrated significant growth and emotional maturity, there may be something they do reminiscent of past behavior or emotional state; it is important for their parents or other family members to maintain confidence and not fear that all is lost and overreact.

Usually, some component of nature is helpful in retreats, but sometimes a family residing in a rural, wilderness-like setting might find the challenge of retreating in a busy city sufficiently out of their comfort zone to increase their openness—neuroplasticity—to growth.

The therapist or coach determines how much time is spent in therapeutic pursuits and how much time the family has on its own. During the therapeutic time, experiential activities are helpful.

Benefits of Family Retreats

We have seen extremely positive results to family retreats:

• An adolescent agreed to go to a wilderness program, which his parents were afraid to suggest before the retreat because of their sense of failure and not wanting to upset him.
• A family enhanced by the benefits of family coaching was able establish their own healthy boundaries and set expectations for their adolescent to be productive during the summer.
• A family successfully helped their young adult find her own way to be productive and develop social relationships that were satisfying to her.
• A family anxious about what would happen post-treatment to their young adult was able to be clear about their expectations while their child was able to describe her needs, desires, and expectations and develop a way to handle difficult decisions.

As these cases show, a family retreat can help avoid the financial and time commitment of a treatment program, can positively engage all family members, and can help avoid stigmatizing an individual family member. In these ways, family retreats can truly be a transformative experience.

By Cynthia Cohen, MSPH, 51�Թ� (CO), and Christopher Blankenship, LCSW, Founder of Autism Learning Lab