Family Counseling Services in Oakwood Hills, IL.

Kari Hunter is a licensed family therapist with over 25 years of experience. Whether your family has young children, teens, or adult children, Kari has worked with all types of problems. Families can benefit from family therapy when there is school performance problems, sibling rivalry, divorce or re-marriage transitions, or parenting differences. In many cases, insurance covers family therapy.

In my family therapy approach, I focus on fostering open communication and understanding within the family unit. By creating a safe space, I encourage each member to express their feelings and perspectives without judgment. Utilizing techniques such as systemic exploration and narrative therapy, I help families identify underlying patterns, conflicts, and strengths. Together, we work towards resolving conflicts, improving relationships, and establishing healthier dynamics, empowering families to navigate challenges and thrive.

Family life can be very difficult because of the number of personalities at work in one home. Acceptance is one of the many important keys to living in an open and safe home. Learning what roles are in play in the home and adopting new styles of interaction is also important. Power struggles tend to be one of the pitfalls to families who want to live in harmony. Learning to better communicate with openness and calmness allows for problem solving to take place.

Life is complicated. It is hard to create and maintain healthy relationships with those we love the most. There are many different thoughts and feelings, from the past and present, that exist in all of our interactions with one another. It isn’t always simple, whether we are trying to effectively communicate feelings, establish rules for the household, navigate the waters of intimacy, guide our children toward a successful future or simply attempting to provide a healthy meal while working, studying, and cleaning. The world and our family lives are increasingly more complex. Though we all have the tools within ourselves and within our relationships to create thelives we want. Through our psychotherapy approaches whether parenting coaching, couples or...(view profile to read more)

Family therapy is complex nowadays exacerbated by high divorce rates and blended families. There's an necessary built-in awareness and empathy that has to exist in order to help these families. It requires more than knowledge and understanding, but rather an ability to read, interpret and redirect not one individual but an entire group of individuals who are invested in each other and needing insight, guidance and intervention. Not easy. Family Systems theory drives my work in this realm. It's all about the relationship and the impact each person has on the other. I've been trained in Gottman Couples Therapy - a leading expert in this area.

When working with children and adolescents, family therapy is often a part of the treatment plan since a child's or adolescent's behavior impacts a family and vice versa. I use a systems approach to family therapy and often explore the communication patterns, roles, and rules of the family. I help families examine the interactions and/or dynamics of the family that are working and the patterns and/or interactions that are not.

In family therapy I treat the dynamic of the relationship between family members. We all have a deep need to belong and feel accepted by others. This starts in our family of origin. If things are preventing us from feeling accepted by our families we seek other places to feel that connection. By helping each person feel heard, understood and accepted by their family members we can create significant change.

In dealing with families, I strive to help to improve communication and conflict resolution techniques. Often, members of familiies mean well, but express their needs and dis-satisfactions in a way that increases conflict and turmoil. In home conflicts often escalate and lead to withdrawal or explosive incidents. A calmer, problem resolution is possible in and office setting with a neutral party. In such a setting, we are usually able to effect better listening to one another and achieve the kind of understanding and acceptance that leads to greater family harmony.

The family is a very important and formative group in society and the magnitude of the effects of family dynamics cannot go ignored. We look at the individual roles that each member plays in the family unit and we strive for every voice to be heard. We set family therapy rules, so that we can provide a respectful place to process family concerns, trauma, and other past situations.

Family therapy is not about shame and blame. It is a wonderful way to look at the system and how the system operates. There are strengths and weaknesses within all families. In family therapy focus is put on understanding family interactions and the forces that reinforce positive interaction or may be contributing to failure causing pain and hurt. In family therapy, family members becomes aware of unhealthy interactions and dynamics. They are then better able to recognize what needs to change and therefore improve the functioning of the family system.

Family therapy needs to be engaging for it to be helpful. It can be daunting, with some family members not feeling safe enough to say what they truly feel. Each family member deserves to be understood, and to be a part of something special. The family therapist needs to connect with each member of the family. Encouraging humor, creativity, and stretching comfort levels are all part of the process.

My goal in working with couples and families is to restore hope and a love to battered relationships. I believe in using a mix of practical assessment skills, creativity and humor with a genuine commitment to marriage and families. In addition, I lovingly challenge individuals to look at themselves and identify what is holding them back from fully loving each other. I offer dynamic and powerful trainings and assessments that will propel families and couples forward more quickly. My heart is to help couples and parents once again experience grace to see their loved ones the way God does.

My greatest desire and joy is to meet with families who want to learn how to communicate better in the home, to listen to each other, respect each other and in short, to get along well. I counsel from my belief that the mother and father are the leaders of their family. However, I treat each individual family member with the respect they deserve, and by listening to and addressing each family member's issues within the family. I used Person-Centered, Family Systems and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in working with families, because I believe these counseling theories work best in the 'real world' where families really live, dealing with REAL problems in getting along with each other.

Does it seem like your family is just off? or maybe like one person is to blame? Sometimes, the adults think that a child is root cause of an issue, but many times they may be the symptom to a bigger family issue. Many times I work with kids whose behaviors have escalated, and parents are looking for support. I then walk alongside them and the child to help identify the symptoms, the underlying issues as a family, and work towards living a more fulfilling life. Most times youth learn new ways to cope, as well as parents learning to decipher the codes that kids are trying to tell us. Call me for a free phone consultation and I'll help you assess if family therapy is right for you!

Families can find themselves in a rut with communication issues. Mr. Edleman likes to bring those issues to light and help everyone get a better understanding of how each other is feeling. Mr. Edleman also helps provide the tools you never knew you had to be better at communicating. He also provides unique treatment planning for the whole family.