Traditional therapy focused on the individual. Family therapy, on the other hand, does not consider the origin of psychological problems to be found completely in the individual. Rather, starting from the systems approach, it sees the family as a system, and if any member of that system has a problem, this may be connected to problems in system itself.
傳統的心理治療方法是以病者個人為治療對象；家庭治療法則不把心理疾病完全歸因於個人問題，而是從系統的觀念出發，將家庭看成是一個系統，任何成員出問題，都可能與這個系統環環相扣、互相影響。