If you are interested in couples or family therapy for yourself or ones you love, our work will follow a similar format to individual therapy and therapy with teens. I strongly recommend you set up a free consultation to see if I would be a good fit for your family as a therapist. Consider making an appointment or setting up a free 15 minute consultation. Follow this link to do so.
I mentioned on the individual therapy page that I’m a “nerd” for talk therapy. I’m an even bigger nerd for couples and family counseling. I once spoke about it for three and a half hours as a guest speaker in a graduate class with little preparation.
Couples and family counseling is like an all you can eat buffet. There is SO MUCH to work with. It can be very empowering. To help explain what makes it so great, think of it like this: individual therapy focuses on the relationship between the therapist and the person receiving therapy. Couples and Family therapy focuses on the relationship between family members and partners. Real transformative change can happen in real time in each session. Individuals can carry that experience with them right out of the office and into the real world.
Just like individual therapy/counseling, there will be some rough phases that we move through. We will need to establish a goal in the beginning. This will be collaborative and clearly established.
After discussion at the onset of therapy, I may recommend individual sessions with some participants to get a sense of foundational relational patterns. This is often a moving experience for those involved. For many it is the first time they have created space to examine and sit with those patterns.
Next as a group we will explore individuals’ experiences within a larger family system. My role will be to hold up a metaphorical mirror to examine how you work through things and address any current “log jams.” As one grandparent I worked with put it: “we learned to say things that we should have been saying for years.”
As we progress through this stage, faulty ways of communicating and establishing boundaries will be examined amended. Balance and role delineation are key to making positive changes.
It is the people in our lives who help define us, empower us, and help us live to be the best possible versions of ourselves. Because of this, couples and family therapy is cosmic. If you love and care for someone who needs help through counseling and therapy, you may have encountered his or her resistance to the suggestion of getting help. Being a willing participant in the therapeutic process yourself can be motivating. This is especially common among adolescents who get recommended for therapy. They can feel like they are the scapegoat or problem and reject your ideas around help. Agreeing to go in for therapy with them as part of a family can lessen this resistance.
It is my hope that we can meet for couples or family therapy to walk through the rough phases listed above. It can be a great way to bring about great changes on a large scale. Consider setting up an appointment by using this link.
