Services for Families of All Ages

We support the notion that families can sit down and talk directly with one another to resolve their differences or to help one member face and work out difficult problems.  Having a guided conversation as a family can avoid the fragmentation that often occurs when family members are in separate individual therapies, but do not have the opportunity to bring together their perspectives and resources as a total family unit.  Families often need a professionally assisted conversation in a psychologically safe environment where they can be confident that they can express their feelings and be heard and respected.  We have encountered many adults who regret having missed the opportunity, when they were younger or when their parents were alive, to speak with them honestly, from the heart, to attempt to resolve life-long issues and feelings.

When the issues center on a child or an adolescent, we start with the assumption that parents love their children. With the support and guidance of a neutral, trained family therapist, parents are usually their children’s best therapists. Problems in the family relationships or developmental stresses can frustrate everybody in a family and bring out behaviors in parents and children that are both painful and ineffective. With the collaboration and consultation of an experienced family therapist, mothers and fathers can guide their children more effectively and can resolve behavioral, academic, or emotional problems. Though the work can be challenging, especially with adolescents, we believe that nothing is more effective than family members sorting out difficulties and solving problems directly with each other.  For children, adolescents, and parents the therapy process is often emotionally powerful and meaningful on many levels.

Family therapy draws on the combined emotional resources of the whole family. Its objective is to strengthen families, to build communication skills, and to reveal and enhance hidden family emotional assets. There is no form of therapy that can take the place of working out problems directly with the people you love.