Family Counseling
Does your family struggle to communicate, compromise, and connect?
Do you feel like your family members are not on the same page?
Are siblings bickering constantly?
Do family jokes go too far?
Do you and your partner undermine each other in front of the kids?
Are family trips more stressful than pleasurable?
Family discord can put even the calmest of parents on edge. You wish your real-life family was more like that holiday photo, but when everyone is together, something usually goes wrong. Perhaps one child is a “bully” or another one is “sensitive” but these labels don’t really help you prevent future fights. As a parent, you can’t stand all the drama, but sometimes you are also a contributor. Things just aren’t easy anymore.
Perhaps your family discord is quieter, and everyone just wants to be in their own rooms. Your tween or teen suddenly feels like a stranger. Families like this might not be fighting, but they are also not connecting.
Most families could benefit from family counseling.
It is natural and healthy for families to disagree and to go through periods of disconnection. Family members are unlikely to have perfectly aligned personalities and views. It is to be expected that tweens and teens pull away as they go through their own identity formation process.
However, you as a parent can sense when something deeper is wrong. Family counseling can expose and heal fissures that are preventing closeness.
Together in therapy, family members learn to express needs in a non-judgmental and non-accusatory way. Family therapy interrupts hurtful patterns of communication like “He never” or “She always.” Family members will instead be taught to speak from the “I” voice and explicitly ask for what they need from their loved ones. I will guide family members to truly hear and respond to each other’s requests.
Family counseling often brings to light viewpoints that have never been explored before. Each family member is challenged to notice and share their triggers for anger or hurt. Your family and I will collaborate to create a vision for what joyful family dynamics might look like.
Family counseling helps your family have productive arguments.
Unproductive arguments can tear a family apart. Family members may leave an unproductive argument feeling raw and unloved. Some arguments can spiral out of control and precipitate a family crisis.
However, in a carefully moderated argument during family therapy, a family can actually gain productive insight on their loved ones. Sometimes, a bit of emotional intensity in a safe space can produce an insight that fundamentally changes the way family members treat each other.
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Family therapy can help you finally achieve the family dynamics that you’ve always wanted.
Families tend to act as a system, with members taking on certain emotional responsibilities. One child might provide comic relief while another is a caretaker. Eldest children tend to have more anxiety and struggle with perfectionism, often believing that their family is counting on them to be responsible and mature. Families with greater levels of dysfunction will have family members with even more one-dimensional roles (such as the hero or the scapegoat).
As an outsider to your family, I have a better chance of understanding the overarching dynamics of your family system. I will be able to notice when family members are stuck in toxic roles. After a few sessions as a full family, I might redirect our focus to working on parent-child dyad or a triangulation that occurs between three family members.
Family counseling is flexible and dynamic, responding to the unique needs of each family.
Sometimes openly identifying and discussing destructive family patterns can be healing in and of itself. In therapy we work on compassionately validating each family member’s experience. The family learns to support each individual to shine beyond the limitations of their “role” in the family. Once parents have a more robust understanding of their family system, they may rebalance their own expectations and attention.
I supplement family counseling with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for parents and children. Sometimes our family interactions are tainted by our negative distortions. Sometimes family interactions are doomed by individual insecurities and emotional reactivity. Once we can identify triggers, negativity, and insecurities, we can work on a healthier sense of self for each family member.
Occasionally, I will recommend that parents work separately with me on positive parenting therapy or individual CBT therapy. Some parents need to work on resolving their own childhood traumas before they can improve their current family dynamics. When parents get individual CBT or parenting therapy, they are often able to make big changes in their family interactions.
But you may still have questions about family counseling…
How long will it take to see results?
Family therapy can be intense and produce many “aha” moments in just one session. I suggest 90 min sessions, and rarely recommend more than 8-10 sessions per family. Sometimes families need a monthly “touch up” once we have reached our stated goals.
I hope to support families in becoming as self-sufficient as possible, because I am not usually around when trouble arises. My biggest goal as your family counselor is to instill compassion and understanding, and then write myself out of the equation.
What if my partner or my children are not on board with family counseling?
Unfortunately, I would suggest taking a different route if family members are not interested in family therapy. Most likely child counseling or parenting counseling might be viable alternatives. I usually incorporate family sessions into all my child counseling cases, once the client is ready.
Everyone entering my therapy office should truly want to be there. When a family member is not ready to change, family therapy can get stuck.
The good news is that you can make a lot of positive changes in family dynamics working with those individual family members who are interested in therapy. We can take our time warming up to full family therapy, based on trust built in other sessions.
Our family doesn’t fit the standard mold. How will family therapy work for us?
I am a multiculturally competent and multilingual counselor who has provided therapy to LGBTQ+ families, blended families, and bi-cultural families. Sometimes adults need therapy with their own parents, to resolve family-of-origin patterns. Family therapy is not a one-size-fits-all practice. A wide range of toxic family relationships can and will change with the compassionate support of a devoted family counselor.
You can have the joyful family that you have always wanted.
If you would like to schedule an appointment or discuss your needs, you can call or text 720-310-0570, email admin@kairoswellnesscollective.com, or send a message here. Feel free to reach out by text or phone whenever is convenient. We will get back to you shortly to discuss goals, pricing, and schedule.