Family Therapy

Most of us don’t get the opportunity to do healing work directly with a family member, so this kind of therapy is particularly enriching and powerful when two adults endeavor upon it in earnest.

A lot of really important and essential family therapy occurs in the context of younger families who have a child navigating a new diagnosis or the storms of adolescence, or when someone is in an active addiction and an intervention is required. This is not the kind of family therapy I offer. I only work with willing adults, not minors, who all have an active interest in improving their relationship with each other and no one is in imminent crisis where a higher level of care would be indicated. Usually one person is the catalyst for family work, but therapy usually isn’t successful unless everyone involved is at least somewhat invested. Below are common concerns and scenarios I’m most equipped to help with:

  • Estranged or conflictual parent/child duos who want to find a path forward together

  • Siblings who have become distant/conflictual due to complex family dynamics or divorce

  • When there is a loss anywhere in the family and members wish to come together to grieve and process, particularly if the grief is complicated (such as with sudden loss, chronic illness or suicide)

  • Siblings managing elder care of one or both parents, including financial concerns and the sharing of responsibilities

  • Siblings healing together after abuse or trauma endured in their childhood

  • Either an adult child or parent wishing to make a repair of any kind that has previously felt elusive - sometimes this includes a more formal apology or a kind of formalized accountability for past abuse, impact of substance use or other relational injuries throughout the course of the relationship

  • Financial concerns

  • Help establishing healthy boundaries with your child or your parent(s)

  • Helping an adult child wishing to find emotional and/or financial independence from their parent(s); or helping a parent launch an adult child into more independent living

  • Codependency and/or enmeshed family systems

  • Issues around coming out and other identity concerns

  • I most often work with dyads (two family members) but also work with larger family systems if it becomes clear it would be beneficial to the larger goals of the family