Family Therapy is designed to address concerns rooted in the family dynamic while learning and creating new ways to communicate, set rules, and create an environment where all members of the family are heard and supported.

Family counseling with a child or young teen is often “parenting training” – helping get parents back in charge of the family unit in a loving but structured way. Parents are taught skills in managing the family system, creating rules and boundaries, and how to handle conflicts in the family.

Families can benefit from therapy when they experience any stressful event that may strain family relationships, such as financial hardship, divorce, or the death of a loved one. In addition, it can be effective in treating mental health concerns that impact the family as a whole, such as depression, substance abuse, chronic illness, and food issues, or everyday concerns, like communication problems, interpersonal conflict, or behavioral problems in children and adolescents.

As a family therapist in new jersey, I work to help families to collaborate among each other in order to solve their problems and continue to use their learned skill sets in their everyday interactions. For example, if a child is having a behavioral problem, therapy will focus on the family patterns that may contribute to the child’s acting out, rather than evaluating the child’s behavior alone.

As the family uncovers the source of the problem, they can learn to support the child and each other, working proactively on minimizing or altering the conditions that contribute to the child’s behavior.

Parenting counseling will educate parents on how to use behavioral charts, rewards, systems, and many other techniques to increase the benefits of working together as a family and not against one another.