Strengthening connection across family systems
Family therapy works with the system, not just the individual. We explore interaction patterns, communication breakdowns, and the varying roles within your family to support greater understanding, reduce conflict, and create more flexible and connected relationships across generations and household dynamics.
Sometimes families need support
Do any of these statements describe your family:
- Our family is dealing with a problem or issue that causes ongoing stress or conflict
- We’re a blended family finding it hard to get along
- Our family feels stuck in repeating patterns or cycles of behaviour
- We’re a rainbow family needing support with gender or sexuality issues
- We are a struggling neurodivergent family
- In our family, it’s getting increasingly harder to talk or communicate with each other about what’s going on
- It’s getting harder to trust each other in this family
- We are queer, CNM, or polyam and don’t know how to come out to our families
The issues above might be family-wide or to do with just one member, but where their
problem affects the rest of the family. However, if you said yes to any of the above, then you may be a family in crisis.
We don’t get to choose our families. Often, family units struggle to collaborate or work out effective ways to support each other and make changes. This is a normal experience. Family life doesn’t come with a manual and often how we deal with things is what we have learnt and had passed down to us from previous generations.
How can family therapy help?
Family therapy aims to reduce distress and conflict within families. It helps build positive interactions among members, grow quality of relationships, and supports healthy family development and functioning. Family therapy can support families at any stage of their journey, whether that’s for new parents, families with teenagers or caring responsibilities for
ageing parents.
Family therapy views families as unique systems with their own structure and styles of relating and communicating. It also considers what is happening for families in their community and cultural systems. It addresses problems as patterns or structures that need adjusting, rather than being individual issues.
Family therapy looks at family functioning and relationships. This might be the immediate nuclear family, the extended family and, sometimes, include social networks. In some cases, it might even be polycules.
At its core, family therapy helps family members resolve conflict and improve their communication and functionality. Family members can learn how to express their thoughts, feelings and needs more effectively, resulting in less hurt and damage to each other.
Our approach
We love providing support to non-traditional or under-represented family structures. These include Rainbow and CNM or polyam families as well as blended families and families where one or more members is neurodivergent or has a disability.
The goals of family therapy vary depending on your needs. It can deal with issues or crises or help with upcoming problems and transitions. It can be short- or long-term depending on the reasons for attending.
We work with you to develop a treatment plan that focuses on specific needs. We help family members develop skills, strategies, and other resources to support with the resolution of the issues you want addressed
Sometimes family therapy may involve just the parents, helping them to learn new parenting skills or how to work more cohesively with each other. We may also work with children or teenagers working through specific challenges they are experiencing in school or in their family unit.
If necessary, family therapy could sometimes engage with extended family such as grandparents or grandchildren if the issues extend beyond the immediate family unit.
Our specialities:
- Dealing with difficult family life transitions such as separation, divorce, and death
- Resolving conflict or communication difficulties between family members between parents and/or children
- Rainbow families struggling with gender and sexuality
- Neurodivergent families who need more resources
- Identifying and resolving relationship issues that may affect parents and/or children
- Managing issues arising from a blended family
- Dealing with life challenges for one person or the whole family
- Sibling conflict/rivalry or behavioural issues
- Developing parenting skills or dealing with parental problems
- Grief and Loss
- Stress and Anger
- The effects of trauma, illness, disability and major change
- The effects of self-harm or drug and alcohol abuse
What should we expect from doing family therapy?
If you’re considering therapy, you might have some questions about the process and what to expect. These questions might apply more generally and not just to working with me.
Below are some of the more frequently asked questions I get asked regarding psychotherapy…
Click on the question to expand the answer.
If you cannot find your question below, you might also like to look at the How I work page or contact me directly.
What makes family therapy different?
Family therapy looks at families as being their own unique and complete systems. In a family system we consider that:
- When one person experiences problems, other family members are often affected by them
- The family has a pivotal role in foster social, emotional and mental wellbeing
- Working with the whole family supports individuals
- All family members can contribute to solutions to problems
What do we do in a session?
During a session, we will help yoiu identify the communication and behaviour patterns behind familial problems. We work with you to develop skills strategies and may explore your family roles, dynamics, and any underlying emotional issues or traumas that may be having an impact.
We might use techniques like role-plays, communication exercises, games and explorations of family history.
How do we prepare for our session?
It is often helpful if all family members can attend the first session. However, depending on your family situation this is not always the best way to proceed.
Be clear with each other why you are attending. It’s important that nobody feels blindsided by the reasons for attending and it’s important that everyone is there by choice, not because they have been forced or deceived into coming along.
Think on or write notes about why you are coming and specific incidents underlying this. Think about what your commitment is to resolving the problem. Sometimes, it may require you all ‘sticking at it’, as hard as it may feel.
Come with an open mind and be prepared to listen to each other. If communication is an issue in your family stay open to being coached on how to really listen to each other.
What sort of family therapy do you practice?
Family therapy is an umbrella term for a number of different approaches.
In sessions, we use the following family therapy modalities:
- Systemic family therapy, which looks on how individuals are all interconnected in a family unit and how problems with one person have an impact on everybody.
- Structural family therapy, which looks at roles and hierachies within a family to see if there are any imbalances and how these can be rectified to create a more balanced family structure.
- Strategic family therapy, which uses brief behavioural interventions to see if there is any immediate change in a family’s functioning, without relying too heavily on the underlying causes.
- Narrative family therapy, which helps reframe the stories we tell in our family that may be self-defeating or perpetuating problems into new narratives that are empowering and healing.
Take the First Step Towards Change
Healthy relationships are not about perfection. They are built through safety, understanding, communication and repair. Therapy can help you better understand yourself, your nervous system and the patterns that shape the way you connect with others.
Whether you’re seeking support individually or within your relationships, we offer a warm, non-judgemental space for growth, healing and deeper connection.