5 Anxiety Worksheets (Free Download)
Looking for a family therapy activities PDF to share with your clients? You’ve come to the right place.
This article contains a family therapy worksheets PDF to improve communication and resolve conflicts.
It also covers the benefits of family therapy, explains different activities, shares icebreakers to help build rapport and make communication easier during sessions, and explains how these activities can be applied to clients for better therapy results.
The family group therapy activities described in the family therapy activities PDF are helpful for a wide range of concerns, including resolving conflicts constructively, addressing disruptive behaviors, and strengthening relationships between family members.
Download the family therapy worksheets PDF for free and save it to your electronic health record (EHR) for easy access in the future, or share it directly with your clients as a resource during therapy sessions.
Benefits of family therapy
Many clients seek family therapy to address issues such as:
- Parenting challenges
- Marital problems
- Unresolved conflicts between siblings
- Difficulties due to the death of a loved one, trauma, or life transitions
- Behavioral issues in children
- Family members dealing with anxiety, depression, or other mental health problems
Research shows family therapy is effective in addressing these challenges. It’s also important to note that family therapy is not just about solving immediate problems, but also about creating lasting change in how family members interact with one another.
The family therapy activities PDF uses a collaborative approach, meaning all family members work together as a team to solve the problems they are dealing with.
Active participation provides several benefits.
When everyone is involved, families can:
- Learn to express themselves more openly and listen actively, so they can understand each other’s perspectives.
- Find healthier ways to handle disagreements and reduce tension.
- Have a safe space where they begin to heal together from grief, trauma, and mental health challenges.
- In cases of behavioral issues involving children or teens, families can learn tools and techniques to manage behavior.
- Develop a sense of shared responsibility as family members learn to recognize their roles and how their actions affect others.
- Build long-term coping skills they can continue to use to handle future challenges.
Types of family therapy activities
A therapist usually tailors activities according to the specific issues that the family is facing and the initial information they gain through conversations.
The activities in the family therapy activities PDF include communication exercises, role-playing, art projects, and problem-solving tasks.
Here are some common family therapy activities:
Family questioning
This activity helps family members understand each other’s feelings and perspectives. One person asks open-ended questions and everyone takes turns answering.
For example, one family member might ask:
- “What’s something you’ve been feeling lately that you haven’t shared yet?”
- “What do you wish was different about how we handle conflicts?”
- “How can we create more positive moments together?”
- “How can we support each other more in this?”
Emotions ball
Family members feel understood when their emotions are acknowledged.
This activity, included in the family therapy worksheets PDF, instructs therapists to provide clients with a beach ball with different emotions written on it. Let them pass the ball around. When someone catches it, they share an emotion they’re feeling at that moment.
The miracle question
In a discussion, ask, “If a miracle happened tonight and your problem was gone, what would be different tomorrow?”
This helps open up conversations about their hopes.
The feelings walk
The purpose of this activity is to help family members communicate their emotions in a safe and lighthearted way.
Here, each chair has an “emotion” word written on it, such as “happy,” “frustrated,” or “excited,” and when the music stops, each family member must sit in front of the chair and talk about how that feeling relates to their own experience at that moment.
Role-playing
During this exercise in the family therapy activities PDF, family members act out situations or take on each other’s roles.
For example, one family member might pretend to be a parent while another acts as a child, so they can see a situation (such as a disagreement) from the other person’s perspective.
Lily pads
Draw or place lily pads (on paper or real objects) around the room. Each lily pad represents a different issue the family is dealing with, such as household responsibilities or conflicts between siblings.
Family members take turns jumping from one lily pad to another while discussing how they can work together to solve the problem.
Family vision board
This is a fun activity that helps families align on what they want to achieve together. Each family member can bring pictures, words, or quotes that represent their goals or ideas. They may also look through magazines or print images from the internet.
After the vision board is complete, each family member takes turns sharing why they chose their images or words.
Art therapy
Art therapy uses creative activities like drawing and painting as a way for clients to express their thoughts and emotions, especially when words are hard to use.
Research has shown that art therapy helps with mental health by using artwork to reflect a person’s emotions, thoughts, and progress.
Note: Regardless of the activity, the goal is to promote understanding and cooperation. Structural family therapy worksheets are an important tool and can be used whenever needed or at key points in the treatment.
Family therapy icebreakers
Family therapy icebreakers can be any activity or exercise that help family members feel more comfortable with each other and the therapist.
Activities like the “positive affirmations jar” and “favorite family memory” are particularly useful at the beginning of a therapy session for reducing tension.
Therapists can also introduce them to clients who are new to family therapy or during sessions where the family may need to shift focus (e.g., from a difficult topic to a lighter one).
The positive affirmations jar
Each family member writes down positive affirmations or kind words about the other members of the family and places them in a jar. These affirmations are then read aloud by the therapist or by the family members themselves.
Favorite family memory
In this exercise from the family therapy worksheet PDF, each family member will be asked to share one of their favorite family memories.
The therapist instructs them to elaborate on why this memory stands out and how it made them feel. This is a simple way for family members to recall happy, bonding experiences.
Name that emotion
This family therapy icebreaker involves the therapist presenting different emotional scenarios, such as running late for an important event or the family winning a surprise vacation. Then, the therapist asks each family member to identify and name the emotions they might feel in those situations.
Using the family therapy worksheets PDF with clients
As a therapist, you can choose any activity from the family therapy activities PDF that you feel will best support your clients’ needs.
Feel free to get creative when using the family therapy interventions PDF. You can use tools like markers, sticky notes, or even everyday items like jars for activities. The goal is to make the exercises easy, fun, and relatable for everyone.
Before starting an activity, spend a few minutes explaining why you’re doing it. For example, you can say, “This activity is to help everyone better understand how you feel during a family conflict” or “We’re doing this activity to remind ourselves of the strengths we have together.”
After completing an exercise from the family therapy activities PDF, always follow up with clients.
Ask family members to share their insights or reactions, or what they have learned.
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