Family Therapy is a short-term, interactive treatment process between you, your family and your therapist. This approach is usually several months in length and brings you and your family members together to resolve difficult and recurring problems.
This approach will help strengthen your family in meaningful ways. Everyone involved comes to realize the power and benefit of working together from a present/future focus. My interventions usually focus on your current concerns by paying close attention to your family’s useful and ineffectual patterns of interaction.
This approach is adaptive enough to include individual as well as couples therapy. In this way, family therapy is effective even when only you can participate.
A journey that seems overwhelming or even hopeless starts with one step. Your call is that first step.
ANXIETY AND FEARS
Are you experiencing an inability to relax, irritability, a lack of concentration, or panic attacks? Anxiety or fears are prevalent in our fast-paced, demanding society. We all know about the pressures to succeed at work, at school, as parents, partners, and loved ones. Lets not leave out the nagging pressures to climb the social and economic ladders or for our children to fit in with their peers. For adults or for children, it is easy to get caught up in a relationship with anxiety or fear that leaves us feeling socially and emotionally disconnected. My services bring people together in order to mobilize the strength necessary to break free from this emotional drain.
PARENTING
Am I doing too much for my children? Maybe I’m not doing enough? Is my child ADHD? How is he adjusting to his new school? “No matter what I do, I won’t repeat my parent’s mistakes…I mean I know I will make mistakes but not if I can help it.” I hear this in my office and I have even thought it myself as a parent. It is inevitable to feel anxiety around parenting. We are inundated with “how-to” information and much of it is contradictory. Sure there are basic parenting skills to consider. Parenting is partially about being firm with our children. It is also about allowing our children to feel heard by us. We can talk about this both in terms of what is going well and what might need to change.
DEPRESSION
Are you experiencing feelings of despair that come out of nowhere or that are linked to a specific event, confusing mood swings (from feeling high on life to a life not worth living), or even postpartum blues? This sounds like depression and depression is often fed by isolation and a desire to further withdraw. I have witnessed exciting transformation when loved ones are brought together to mobilize their strength against depression. This can come in the form of resolving nagging conflicts, or creating a space where the important people around you learn to listen and you can finally feel heard. Beginning to feel “understood” is a 1st step.
ADDICTIONS or SUBSTANCE ABUSE
Perhaps you or a family member is coming out of treatment. “Will I still love him?” How do you and your family make that transition? Perhaps you think that a family member might need a formal treatment program. Now what? These are complicated scenarios and family therapy can help. Addictions and substance abuse touch many families in destructive ways. You might be in relationship with an addiction or substances, or you might believe that one of your family members is. In session we will treat the addiction as “another unwanted member of the family.” Addiction creates family havoc out of the bond that is formed between the abuser and their addiction or substance of choice. We will discuss this in our therapy as well as the many other personal and complex issues associated with this problem. As a family therapist, I have brought many loved ones together to find their own collective solutions through productive and thoughtful dialogue.
TRAUMA
Repetitive thoughts or images, the desire to avoid certain people or places, irritability, and trouble concentrating, are just a few of the potential signs of trauma. Trauma can occur from a single incident (a violent experience) or from repeated exposure to a similar event (family turmoil). Trauma and the thoughts and feelings associated with it get lodged in our Nervous System and trauma encourages social and emotional isolation. Where children are concerned, trauma can look a lot like anxiety or depression. It can result from parental conflict, separation or divorce, illness, or a life transition. Family Therapy can help because it challenges a tendency to withdraw by mobilizing a person’s resources. Trauma is best managed by creating a supportive environment where all family members can hear each other and feel heard by one another and ultimately become part of the solution.