Therapy for Couples and Families
Relationships are hard work, but they don't always have to be a struggle.
Couple Therapy
Couple therapy addresses the couple relationship itself and your joint dynamics. It can provide focused time to explore who you are as individuals and as a couple, practice listening and responding meaningfully, and nurture what you share together.
Relationships can be hard, particularly, if your family experience or life history complicate everyday interactions. Sometimes, you may not even be aware that it's happening. A therapist can help to identify patterns that cause repeated conflicts. While gathering information may help, additional knowledge or skills aren't a substitute for identifying important emotions as they arise in your own life context, discovering what they're trying to tell you (specifically), and leaning into authentic interactions with your partner, which might feel uncomfortable at first.
Benefits of having a couple therapist include having someone to:
- Provide information or guidance when necessary
- Model careful listening and thoughtful responding
- Provide support as you learn to tolerate new emotional or relational experiences
- Provide an outside perspective when helpful
- Draw out each of you so that you can have important conversations that might be difficult to have in this stage in your relationship.
Family Therapy
Family life can be both meaningful and challenging.
Families are important. They are the first social unit that we're a part of and our early experiences shape how we see and experience others into adulthood.
Making the effort to heal and strengthen family relationships can increase your feelings of connection to others, improve your ability to draw on others for support, and provide a nurturing environment for family members, regardless of age.
Families come in all shapes and sizes. In case you're wondering, family therapy isn't just for adult parents and young children. For instance, it can help:
- A parent with one or more adult children
- Siblings caring for and/or making decisions for an aging parent
- A family whose member has just died and those remaining are learning how to navigate relationships without this member.
In addition to other benefits, family therapy can help you to:
- Better understand patterns of communication and behavior that might make interacting difficult or unsatisfying
- Learn how to interact in ways that build up your relationships rather than tear down and isolate
- Make changes so that each of you is better supported and cared for
- Create a healthy, nurturing environment so that children can flourish now and have healthy relationships in the future
- Make decisions that reflect love, care, and respect for each family member.