Family counseling explores the unique values, belief systems, and particular temperament of each individual to provide strategies for effective communication.
Families are dynamic, ever changing organisms. Even some changes that are welcomed and positive, like weddings and birth of a child, can destabilize a family. My approach to family therapy is to recognize the family unit as one fluid entity, while being attentive to every individual’s unique needs, expectations and impact on other members in the family.
I also provide tools to help members of the family express their needs, hopes and fears in a way that brings about togetherness and understanding. This helps to bring down the emotional walls that usually causes painful distance between them. The emotional wounds can also be aggravated by life stage transitions experienced by one or more family members, differing lifestyle choices, or by certain cultural or financial expectations.
I specialize in working with multicultural / bi-racial families that struggle with asserting their respective cultural identities, parenting bi-racial children and creating their own unique family cultures.
I provide short-term family therapy, which may involve working with one or part of a family unit, the entire family and/or extended family (step parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles) as necessary. Some common issues that clients come to seek family therapy include:
Parenting Skills
Ineffective Communication
Pursuer-Distancer Dynamics
Triangulations between Family Members
Processing Unresolved Family Trauma
Secrets in the Family
Differentiation & Developing Identity
Communicating with Tweens and Teens
Creating Harmony in a Blended Family System
Emotional Cut-Offs
Financial Issues
Bi-cultural Families
Divorce
Life Transitions
"If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door."
― Milton Berle