Family Counseling
Families come to therapy for a variety of reasons. They often look to counseling for extra support during times of change or hardship.
Individual family member concerns may impact the overall well-being of the family, but some issues are unique to family dynamics. These include parenting issues, separation and divorce, death or loss, and the issues of blended families among others.
Families look for support at various stages of the family life cycle and will benefit from family sessions at any of these times.
Parenting: While raising children brings both extra responsibility and joy, some couples struggle to manage the newly found sources of stress and this stress can affect their relationship. Parents often seek guidance or simply good information from a therapist during these times.
Step Families/Blended Families: Step family systems bring challenges and strengths that are unique to them. Challenges can arise from the expectations, roles, and rules that come with the prefixes of “steps and halves.” Blended families can work in family sessions to define family roles and rules or to create more respectful relationships among merged family members.
Areas of family therapy treatment may include:
Family conflict
Power struggles between parents and children
Changing family roles
Education on child development
Boundaries, discipline and how to use them
Parental stress management
Issues of single-parent families
Adoption
Coping with divorce, estrangement
Alcoholism and/or chemical dependence and its impact on the family
Neglect and/or abuse