Family Therapy

My focus and track in graduate school was couples and families and I have continued my work since constantly obtaining new education and reading about techniques.

Please see the My Background and Approach section for more information regarding this specialty.

Integrating family into the work with children and adolescents is key and family therapy is a big part of the work I do. For young people struggling with disordered eating, I am also trained in Family Based Therapy specifically for supporting families in feeding their child.

I work with the entire family to improve communication, increase connection and restore harmony.

There are various fictions floating around about what it takes to be a perfect family. However, the emphasis on perfect is destructive, because it’s an impossible goal. The point is more to have a loving, well-functioning family where kids are cherished and supported to become thriving, fulfilled adults who themselves know how to have good (not perfect) relationships. This always requires constant adaptation and tinkering. I love working with motivated families!

As a family therapist, I see families as interconnected systems where changes for one member can ripple through the entire family. My role is to guide your family through these changes. In my office, everyone is encouraged to participate—because the more voices, the richer the insights and outcomes! I specialize in improving communication and mutual understanding among family members as you adapt and overcome challenges together.

I provide family therapy and parent-based SPACE therapy. Please see the My Background and Approach section for more information regarding this specialty.

Integrating family into the work with children and adolescents is key and family therapy is a big part of the work I do. For young people struggling with disordered eating, I am also trained in Family Based Therapy specifically for supporting families in feeding their child.

Family therapy can include adult siblings with their parents or teenagers with their parents or adult siblings alone. Through structure-guided conversation, whatever issues have created difficulties in the family, they can begin to heal.

As a trained marriage and family therapist associate, I have an education based specifically in therapeutic treatment within the context of relationships. Our relationships with those in our families are the first relationships we have in life and shape every relationship we form therein after. I specifically have experience helping families with adult children explore and process their family dynamic to better function and communicate.

As a licensed marriage and family therapist I am comprehensively trained in family therapy and systems theory. I have worked successfully and consistently with families for the last ten years.

I provide family therapy as a stand-alone service or (when clinically indicated) as an adjunctive intervention for my individual therapy patients. Please see the My Background and Approach section for more information regarding this specialty.

I believe that the space between people is the most powerful place to create change. We are all embedded in relationships and come from families, no matter our current situations, and even individuals carry with us a history of those relationships. A family systems orientation lets me take into account far more than just what's in any one person's "head" when it comes to getting unstuck. I am a Clinical Fellow of AAMFT and have held leadership positions in many family therapy organizations.

Even when working with individuals, it's important to understand family dynamics. We are not completely separate from our families of origin (who we grow up with), despite our best efforts. Family therapists are curious about what you learned from your family about relationships, apologizing, gender roles, sexuality, apologizing, boundaries, and so much more. That doesn't mean every session is about your family, but when it's important we talk about it.

Family therapists are trained to focus on relationships. As human beings, we are constantly engaging in some type of relationship. For many of us, the most impactful relationships we will experience are relationships with our family members, both our families of origin and our families of primary affiliation. When we spend significant amounts of time interacting with others patterns of interaction begin to emerge. One focus of family therapy is addressing patterns that cause distress.

I have completed training in Functional Family Therapy. It is a 3 stage model that seeks to identify the underlying emotions that are leading to the conflict in the family, then choosing specific skills to address these and make change, and finally to discuss how to maintain the changes made during therapy.