Family Counseling

Have you felt you’re drinking from a firehose as the parent of a troubled child?
Do you and your co-parent find yourself constantly at odds about how to parent your child?
Are you tired of feeling blamed, judged and/or criticized as a parent?
Do you feel hopeless about your ability to help your child get back to who he or she used to be?

We can personally relate to your struggles because we have experienced it as parents. We are all too aware of the judgments that society makes about our parenting abilities when our child is struggling and not fitting in to the typical expectations of the school or community. We know your pain and distress because we have felt it to our core. We also have learned how to manage those realities while helping our child overcome significant challenges and be the best person that he can be.

We utilize an empirically-supported model known as Family Systems Trauma (FST) developed by Scott P. Sells, PhD. This is a variation of strategic family systems and Parenting with Love and Limits (PLL); an evidence-based family systems treatment model. This model works to address “interactional trauma,” or the ongoing cycle of conflict between parent and child that often prevents the healing of the trauma event(s). Heather utilizes Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS), an evidence-based model developed by Ross Greene, PhD as another model for assisting families. Heather is certified as a provider and coach to train caregivers to identify the core unsolved problems contributing to their child’s challenging behaviors and engage them in collaborative problem solving techniques to solve these problems. See CPS. In addition to these models, other modalities for treatment are incorporated as needed to include psychoeducation, parenting strategies, and skill building. Tools from Positive Discipline approaches are often incorporated into family work.

In the 20 years we’ve practiced as clinicians we have become all too familiar with a major roadblock to effective treatment for children and adolescents. It is not unusual for families to bring their child to us with the expectation that we “fix” their child without changing anything about the family system. We know that this is an exercise in futility as the child’s behavioral and emotional realities are a byproduct and ongoing function of the entire system. Even if it were possible for a child to be the ONLY contributor to an emotional/behavioral problem, and even if we were to “fix” them through individual work only, they would still return to a system that has come to relate to them as they “were” and not as the changed individual they have become. As your child’s parent, you are a vital ingredient in the health of the family system; a system needed to support your child’s change and progress. We want parents and caregivers to know that they will be involved directly in their child’s treatment experience and that we believe that to be critical to therapeutic progress for children.