Family THERAPY

Family Therapy, defined:

Family therapy is a modality of talk therapy where the relationships within the family unit, be it intact or blended, are the client, rather than the individual people in a family. The goal of family therapy is to focus on improving familial relationships through open communication, mutual understanding, and resolving conflicts. Families seek out therapy for a host of reasons, including parenting challenges, escalating conflict/arguments, external or life transition stressors, and grief and loss. Family therapy can be beneficial for adults and children of any age.

What Family Therapy can help with:

  • Understanding and shifting familial Relationship Roles or dynamics

  • Creating a Shared Vision of parenting or caregiving

  • Understanding and working with differing Coping Strategies

  • Promoting Open Dialog, Compromise, and planning around child and adolescent development

  • Problem-solving challenging Familial Relationships within and beyond the “nuclear family”

  • Navigating challenging External Stressors or Life Transitions

  • Processing Grief and Loss as a family

  • Increasing Quality Time spent together as a family

Who might benefit from it?

  • Families who:

    • Are invested in trying the therapy process

    • Able to participate due to relatively stable cognitive or mental health

    • Have children of all ages, though families with children younger than 5 are structured differently

  • Families who are not actively engaged or exposed to intimate partner or familial abuse/violence cycle

  • Families of any structure, including intact “nuclear”, blended, or non-traditional

What model of family therapy is used at Cultivating Connections?

Here at Cultivating Connections, we practice family therapy based on Imago Relationship Therapy model and principles of trauma-informed attachment-based psychotherapies. Imago Relationship Therapy is a structured approach that emphasizes understanding the impact of family of origin on your created family, identifying unmet needs, and practicing dialog strategies that promote connection and healthy responses to conflict.

Trauma-informed attachment-based psychotherapies are an umbrella descriptor of several therapy models, each of which emphasize the importance of recognizing, honoring, coping differently with relational traumas of the past, and building new healing relationships with the self and others. To quote renowned trauma expert and physician, Gabor Maté, “Safety is not the absence of threats. It is the presence of connection,”. While Imago Relationship Therapy is the foundational model of family therapy at our practice, our training and experience in other models offers expanded insight and tools.

I work with parents and children together ages 5 and up, but also offer family therapy sessions to parents of children under 5. When working with school aged children, developmentally appropriate games, play, and art are utilized as expressive tools.

How can I find out more or sign up?

Consultations, which are free, are a great way for you to find out if our model of family therapy might be a good fit with the issues you wish to address. Click the button below to request and schedule a consultation. The presence of all adult and adolescent parties are requested at the consultation.