At various points in an individual’s and a family’s life, barriers to healthy relationship arise, and while a community of support can at times offer guidance through healing, there are times when that supportive community is not available or life situations seem to create insurmountable obstacles. For parents seeking counseling for their child or adolescent or for the whole family…
Therapy can begin to feel like a pretty good option when it seems as if the school has the parent’s cell phone on speed dial. Studies have shown that, more than the type of therapy offered, it is the relationship with the therapist that is actually the largest predictor of successful treatment. This is certainly true for adolescents. It is my work to create a safe and supportive environment in counseling, one in which humor and authenticity are offered and welcomed. For children, I believe we get a lot further when the parents are involved in most sessions and I work primarily from a Family Systems approach, which is based on the idea that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are greatly impacted by our place within a family context. In my work with children alone, play therapy offers us a common language in play to work through experiences that are impeding the child’s health and development. For adolescents, it seems to depend more on the family’s needs and concerns. Talk therapy (from a psychodynamic approach) is often most appropriate and offers us the space to explore current difficulties, and how it has come to be this way. Sometimes, we are working with a very solution-oriented approach, while other times, healing happens as the adolescent explores difficult places with a caring adult that, for now, “is not my mom!”
For the adult seeking counseling…
Our work is primarily collaborative, one in which, together, we sort out a way through. For some, this involves a short-term, solution-oriented approach with more practical interventions and support. For others, our work takes more time. As we have been hurt in relationship, we are also mended in relationship, and the therapeutic relationship provides a safe context for repair. Our work is not to erase what has been done, but to acknowledge and begin to find new ways of coping with it as well as new ways of relating that can interrupt its repetition in your life. In both approaches, you are the expert on you, and my role is to hold your story – to bear your struggle with you – with kindness, and with the hope that you will not bear it alone.
