FAMILY COUNSELING

Family therapy can be an exciting and effective way to help families cope with a variety of challenging issues. Such issues include:

Families experiencing multiple stressors all at once
The terminal illness or death of a family member
Marital separation or divorce
Remarriage, blended families and step parenting
Drug abuse and alcoholism
Sibling rivalries
Chronic family conflict

Family therapy often views individual symptoms as reflective of larger family problems. Additionally, families can experience problems when they are faced with multiple stressors all at once. The usual way the family has been able to cope with stress in the past becomes overwhelmed and members become locked into rigid family roles that can cause symptoms and conflict within the family system. Family therapy would therefore work to release the family from rigid roles and overwhelmed coping strategies by:

Identifying individual and family strengths
Encourage the family to listen in new ways to all of its members
Accepting family members as unique individuals
Encourage more effective communication patterns
Identifying and expressing underlying emotions