Therapy for Families
Why family therapy?
Family therapy is a response to the understanding that each person exists and finds meaning and well-being as an individual and through their relationships. I work with families who are struggling. Maybe your family has experienced a crisis: a loss, trauma, or threat to your bonds. Or, perhaps, one member—often a child or teen—seems to be carrying and expressing substantial pain and needs your family’s support. In many cases, family therapy is equally (at times perhaps even more) appropriate for children and teens as individual therapy. You can learn new ways of relating, loving, and navigating conflict so that your family can grow and thrive, together.
How does it work?
I work with families to become aware of their patterns and habits of relating, which may be both unconscious and powerfully influential. We will learn about your family from the perspective of each member, and work to build or rebuild trust and empathy through deep, respectful listening. As your family’s therapist, you can expect me to be supportive but also to challenge the status quo. There may be moments of confusion and conflict, but also times of strong connection. I will help your family redefine the problems you’re facing and support you in drawing on your own courage and initiative to change.
My Background and Model for Working with Families
As an intern and in my early career, I worked as an outpatient therapist in the Child and Family unit of RHA, a local community mental health agency. This was a highly impactful experience, as I learned to understand children, teens, and parents in the context of their families. In private practice, I moved to mostly working with individual adults, though my systemic focus remained. Over time, I have become convinced that family work and, relatedly, group work, can be an essential mode of healing for children and adults alike.
When working with families, I draw on my training in Experiential Dynamic Therapy. This type of therapy focuses on the unconscious aspects of relational dynamics in the present moment. I integrate this way of working with the principles of general systems theory and Symbolic Experiential Family Therapy. These are flexible models that I use to make sense of and respond to your family in the here-and-now so that we can identify and disrupt problematic relational patterns and allow fresh, dynamic relational moments to emerge.