Family Therapy

Families come in many forms, and family therapy isn’t limited to parents and children. I work with relationships between adult family members as well—including parents and adult children, siblings, and other family relationships that have become strained or stuck.

Family Relationships

Marriage and Family Therapy is built on a simple but powerful idea: we are all interconnected. My doctorate is specifically in Marriage and Family Therapy, a distinct mental health discipline grounded in systems theory. Rather than viewing one family member as the problem, I look at the patterns of interaction that develop between family members—how each person’s response influences the next and how those responses can create cycles that keep relationships stuck. Families may disagree about many different things, but often the same underlying interactional patterns appear regardless of the topic. By understanding how those patterns developed, how each person participates in them, and what keeps them going, we can begin changing the process underneath the conflict and create healthier ways of relating to one another.

Positive Parenting

Children’s behavior makes more sense when we understand it in the context of their development. What feels defiant, difficult, or concerning to a parent may actually be a normal response for a child at that developmental stage. My master’s degree in Human Development gives me a strong developmental perspective for helping parents understand what their child’s behavior may be communicating, what is developmentally appropriate, and how to respond effectively.

I also teach parents specific, practical parenting skills, drawing heavily from the Love and Logic philosophy. One of the things I value most about this approach is that it can take much of the anger and conflict out of discipline. Parents don’t have to yell, lecture, threaten, or repeatedly try to convince a child that what they did was wrong. The lecture isn’t the consequence—the consequence is the consequence. Parents can respond with empathy, remain calm and consistent, set appropriate limits, and allow children to learn from the consequences of their choices. The goal is not to control children or eliminate every difficult behavior. It is to help children gradually develop responsibility, problem-solving skills, and independence while protecting the relationship between parent and child. We can talk about the theory, but I’ll also help you figure out what to actually say and do when the problem happens at home.

Parents & Adult Children

The parent-child relationship is meant to change as children grow, but making those transitions isn’t always easy. You can’t parent a teenager the way you parent a five-year-old, and the shift becomes even more complicated when children become adults. Parents may struggle to know when to offer guidance, when to step in, and when to step back. Adult children, meanwhile, may want a different kind of relationship with their parents while still needing connection and support. My background in Human Development brings a developmental perspective to these relationships. Together, we can look at whether old roles, expectations, or ways of interacting have kept pace with the family’s current stage of life. Therapy can help parents and adult children establish healthier boundaries, communicate more effectively, resolve longstanding patterns, and develop a relationship that reflects who they are today—not simply who they were when the relationship began.