Family Therapy
Is family therapy right for your family?
Every family faces challenges, but not every family problem requires therapy. However, some problems may be quite severe and the family unit may suffer from poor communication and/or a lack of strategies for disrupting unhealthy or dangerous activity.
For example, is your or teen child struggling in school or demonstrating inappropriate or dangerous behaviors? Are you struggling to communicate with an adult sibling? Is a poor relationship with one or both of your parents or even distant relatives creating problems for you? Are relationships within your family unit or activities taken by members of your family causing severe anxiety or stress (e.g. such as in the case of substance abuse or verbal or physical abuse)?
These are some of the conditions under which you may want to consider family therapy.
Every family goes through rough patches.
It’s incredible what we put each other through, isn’t it? But look around closely, and you’ll find most people are struggling with some sort of family challenge. The challenges facing families vary – misbehaving children, loved ones abusing drugs, parents communicating poorly, siblings being overly competitive and judgmental – the list is endless.
Fundamentally, communication, trust, and strategies for disrupting destructive behavior are the cornerstones of a healthy family dynamic.
Your family can heal.
We say life is short, but in the middle of a family trauma, it feels quite long. We’d all rather experience a supportive and loving family than one in which the dynamics create stress, anger, or sadness.
Believe it or not – you and your family heal. Please call or email me today and we can talk about what’s bothering you.
Therapy can help your family dynamic improve significantly.
It can be very difficult to express what we feel to members of our family or even express those feelings the right way. Our family therapy sessions will include work with your family as a group and occasionally smaller team to clarify issues are and how best to address them.
This is a collaborative effort and may involve outside exercises to continue our progress. We will work toward mutual acceptance, improved communication, increased trust, and better strategies for disrupting damaging behavior before and as it occurs. I’ll also use my years of experience as a family therapist to help you see through to the other side.
FAQs and common concerns:
- Our family should be able to work out our problems - why do we need therapy?
(faq answer not available)
- Is family therapy expensive or a big time commitment?
Family strain is stressful and unhealthy for those involved, but you may find solutions are just around the corner. Family therapy sessions will help to resolve a defined situation for the family (e.g. inappropriate child behavior at school and/or home), and once the sessions are complete, your family will have better strategies for coping with a similar situation in the future. The goal is to create a healthier family dynamic overall, which helps not just today but also saves you and your loved ones from years of unnecessary emotional trauma.