Journey Together Counseling, LLC

ARE YOU FEELING WORRIED OR EXHAUSTED BY WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR FAMILY?

Are you worried that your kids are struggling and not getting what they need to have well-adjusted, happy lives?

Do you feel exhausted by the same fights or issues in your family that come up over and over again?

Are you and your partner or co-parent having difficulty getting on the same page for how to raise your children?

Maybe you are worried that, unless things change, you are on a path to lose your relationship with your family member.

Family therapy sessions can include family members of all ages, and many families with adult children find that family therapy is very supportive for overcoming conflict, healing past hurts, and making healthy changes to family patterns. Engaging in family therapy also helps many adults to achieve improved outcomes in their individual therapy.

How we handle (or don’t handle) conflict can make us feel worse

In your family, when things get bad, do people fight and yell, or do they shut down and withdraw? Maybe it begins with one of these, and then turns into the other. Maybe, everybody in your family sort of lives on their own island emotionally, and you don’t really talk about what’s going on, but you know that one or more of your family members is struggling.

ALL FAMILIES STRUGGLE SOMETIMES

Families often struggle to adjust as they are facing new challenges and big stressors. Some changes and stressors are common and considered a normal part of life, but they are still difficult to navigate. Other changes or stressors feel big and unexpected.

Families can also struggle because the daily grind of life wears us down, especially when we don’t feel like we’re on a team as a family. Family struggles may be common and normal, but it doesn’t mean they are easy, and sometimes families find that they don’t have a good map for navigating issues and growing together.

We Can Only Do What We’ve Learned to Do

Family rules and roles get passed down to us and modeled for us in our own families, and in the families we see as we grow up. No family is perfect, and we inevitably pick up some patterns that are not helpful for communicating or relating with each other. We imitate what we know, even if it doesn’t always work for us. Sometimes, we just don’t know what to do because no one has taught us or shown us a better way.

You may feel discouraged because you are facing things in your family that leave you feeling anxious or frustrated. It may feel like your options are to either buckle down and do what you’re doing now with more determination, or to let go and let chaos rule. Either option can be exhausting, and there is a better way. Family therapy can help families move out of the stuck place and beyond chaos, into more flexibility and reliability, together.

FAMILY THERAPY CAN HELP YOU GO FORWARD TOGETHER

In family therapy, you and your loved ones will develop a better understanding of why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how to change to get what you need. You’ll explore and apply new and different ways of viewing and addressing problems, and you’ll learn to create solutions for getting needs met within your family that honor each member as a unique person. I work with each family member on their developmentally appropriate level, so that everyone can participate for their family’s best outcome.

What to expect in family therapy

During your first session, you’ll have the opportunity to share what you’ve been going through and discuss the changes you hope to bring about through therapy. Family sessions usually last 50 minutes. Depending on your needs, goals, and preferences as a family, I might encourage you to attend extended sessions ranging from 80 to 110 minutes, to develop a full assessment more rapidly, or for deeper processing.

Most families attend sessions every other week, with good results, but it may be appropriate for your family to meet weekly, to address especially big challenges, to get more traction at the beginning of therapy, or to accelerate the process of change. We can discuss these different options during your initial consultation, and decide what might work best for you.

Treatment Approaches for Family Therapy

In Family Therapy sessions, you can expect to talk together in a supported and structured environment. You might find yourself doing therapeutic play, enactments, or other therapeutic exercises together. I’ll help you and your family members notice and reflect on your impact on each other. You’ll be supported and challenged to take an accountable inventory of your behaviors and their impacts, so that what you do in your family relationships truly aligns with your values and good intentions. You will also be supported to express your needs and feelings effectively, sharing and receiving for yourself, and making space for others to share and receive. The work we do in family therapy is “more than head deep.” It is for making changes that you can see and feel.

I support you through the process for change and growth, and you do the work of identifying and moving toward what you really want and need, with my help along the way.

In my practice, I apply a post-modern, experiential approach to family therapy. I draw on principles from Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Relational Life Therapy, and Trauma-Informed Stabilization Therapy. If learning more about these topics interests you, let me know and I will be happy to talk more about them.

YOU MAY STILL HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT FAMILY THERAPY…

Not everyone in my family is struggling or unhappy. Why should we do family therapy?

There are two big reasons why I recommend family therapy when one or more family members are unhappy. First, when one member of a family changes, the other family members are affected by that change, whether they want to be or not. If other family members don’t grow and change too, there’s a risk that these members will feel left behind and confused or frustrated by the changes. Family therapy can help you navigate healthy changes together, so that each family member is considered and can choose to take steps toward growth.

The second reason I recommend family therapy in this situation is that absent family members can accidentally or intentionally get in the way of their participating members making change when they’re not engaged in the process themselves. This can happen for various reasons, including that these absent members don’t know how to support the changes, or they don’t understand where these changes are coming from, or they don’t know what these changes mean for their relationships with each other.

Family members can make a big impact on each other in family therapy that lasts a lifetime. Growth and change feel better for everyone when family members choose to show up with and for one another through the process.

What if I have family members who are not onboard for doing family therapy? What should I do?

Sometimes one or more family members don’t want to engage in family therapy at first, or at all. I’ve worked with several families in which this is the case, and you can still have positive results. When it feels helpful and appropriate, I develop a treatment path with options to engage significant people in your life who aren’t physically present for therapy. We also talk about and consider what changes can look like for you when one or more people start it together, and then invite others to follow. If you want to learn more about this, you’re welcome to contact me for a free, initial consultation.

I want to talk about uncomfortable things, but I feel worried about how this could go and how family members might respond. What can I expect to happen?

Family therapy can be uncomfortable as you work on changing patterns that aren’t supporting your family right now. We talk about difficult subjects in therapy, and this can be painful at times, but you won’t be alone. I help clients do the difficult and rewarding work of exploring where they’re stuck, what is hurting, and what they want to change. Most importantly, I work with clients to move through the pain and access their innate ability to grow, to engage with one another differently, and to experience lasting and meaningful change.

YOU CAN EXPERIENCE MEANINGFUL CHANGE THROUGH FAMILY THERAPY

If you are interested in starting family therapy, I invite you to get in touch and learn more about my practice. You can use my online calendar to schedule a 15-minute, free, initial consultation here, or contact me through my contact link below.

Contact Me