Family Counseling Services in Island Heights, NJ.

Teen therapy can require a family component. While your teen is the client, their effort is impacted by the dynamics at home. Including parents, and sometimes even siblings, in the process is important. Family therapy sessions are opportunities to get on the same page for supporting your teen and communicating more effectively as a team. You will all have a safe space to share your perspectives and express your needs in a structured, nonjudgemental environment. As the therapist, I will facilitate the discussion to ensure everyone is respected and heard. You will all leave with a greater understanding of each other and the pertinent tools and techniques to support your loved one.

Family dynamics can be challenging. Working through past family traumas, disagreements and misunderstandings can ease a lot of the pain that drives families apart. Lots of traumas are carried down through the generations and counseling can help relieve some of that heaviness so families can set healthy boundaries, thrive, grow and communicate better.

During Family Therapy we deal with: patterns of communication (the way people in the family talk to each other); anger (how that sabotages the family); correcting dysfunctional patters, and negotiation (how to work out things so that everybody feels O.K. about the solutions). During family counseling families learn how to deal with crisis as well conflict management techniques. Also included are effective parenting skills for both children as well as teenagers. Therapy needs to have practical strategies and to be as short term as possible.

It is always important to work with families when working with children. Through the use of family therapy, communication between family members is enhanced and conflicts are better resolved. Family therapy can be useful in any family situation that causes stress, grief, anger or conflict. It can help you and your family members understand one another better and bring you closer together.

My approach to engaging in family therapy is working through the lens of structural, strategic, and narrative therapy. This consists of creating a safe and welcoming space for all family members to be able to express their roles, concerns, and current issues within the family system. Each member of the family plays an important role in this type of therapy.

Depending on what the focus and goals are from the client depends on the approach I would take to facilitate family therapy. Through strategic therapy, families learn to communicate better and create healthier relationships by identifying destructive patterns and replace them with more positive ones. Clients can also benefit from structural family therapy (SFT). I use this approach to focus on how family interactions and dynamics contribute to the problems or issues your family may be facing.

Family therapy is one way to start tp heal families that are struggling with their relationships with each other. Familial relationships can be extremely painful. In fact, they can be the most painful relationships we experience in our lives. This is because they run so deep. Family therapy can help facilitate better communication, understanding and compassion toward each other.

Families often involve three or more individuals, each with their own emotions, understandings, relationships, and challenges. This can make the family dynamic complicated. Also, sometimes one or more family members have experienced personal circumstances that the whole family can have a hard time understanding. Family therapy can help improve family boundaries, clear up misunderstandings, and re-learn healthier communication methods to empower your family to move forward and meet future challenges more effectively.

Most family therapists inadvertently create more chaos through their well-intentioned efforts to assist a family move through a change process. Why? Brains are inherently deregulated (all of us, may I add) and most talking and dialoguing misses brain-centric problems that need more intensive help. Many times the emotional trauma created by years of solving problems ineffectively can wreak havoc on the brain's parasympathetic nervous system, not ever giving the family a break from flight or fight thinking. Contact us for an innovative neuroscience solution to family dysfunction. Kevin@kevinflemingphd.com or 877-606-6161.

We have our closest, longest-lasting, and most complicated relationships with family. When there is divorce, remarriage, addiction, mental illness or other dysfunction it can become even more complicated. With my Family Systems perspective I can help you understand how your family helped to form the person that you are, and help you untangle yourself from the dysfunction and heal the relationships that are important to you.

In family counseling family members develop healthy ways of communicating and responding to one another to create and establish an atmosphere of trust and emotional safety. Family members learn to identify their own needs, increase sensitivity to the needs of others and interact in ways that build trust. Family counseling is conducted in an atmosphere of respect and dignity for all.