Family Counseling Services in Hershey, PA.

Petra Psychological Services believes in building the community one family at a time. Strong families are fundamental in raising healthy functioning productive individuals. Therapy is focused around understanding family dynamics, problem solving, expression of feelings, establishing healthy boundaries and individuality and functioning within the family unit.

I cannot imagine a family out there that does not want to be happy. But life happens. Things can become dysfunctional as family members come and go (planned or unexpectedly), structure and hierarchy change, illness strikes, conflict escalates, addiction is discovered, careers are earned and lost, and communication comes to a standstill. Through mutually agreed upon ground rules, therapy will be the place for each family member to share their experience without fear of retribution and to have the opportunity to be heard without interruption. Then, through a variety of strategies, we work together to reorganize the family's energies and move towards a positive outcome.

We choose our friends but not our family. So when we are hurt by a family member the wound runs deep. This is where you can benefit from family therapy. I provide compassionate non judgemental family therapy. My goal is to identify the underlying reasons for the conflicts in your family and help you develop strategies to resolve them. My clients include couples, adults, step parents and adolescents facing stress, relationship problems, parenting challenges and life transition issues. I offer fresh insight, support and guidance to help the family to resolve conflicts and improve communication. I encourage family members to set mutual goals and hold them accountable to follow through.

Oftentimes, one person will be identified as the problem in a family system, but, oftentimes, they are simply the one who has been showing the symptoms of the dysfunction in the family, rather than themselves having an individual issue. Families can address this by sitting down and talking with each other, with an impartial third party, to discover what is happening within the family and what can be done to fix it.

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 are all relational beings, living within interactive, emotional systems. How we relate to our most significant others (spouse, children, siblings, etc.) can sometimes lapse into unpleasant scripts and powerful undercurrents of action-reaction, negative group-think, and ineffective authority roles. Restoring a sense of effective functioning, wellness and harmony (shalom) within family relationships can be aided by learning and practicing new ways to empathize, communicate, and collaborate with each other. Under certain conditions, families can even benefit from video sessions or teletherapy (if more convenient and less stressful than gathering everyone at a therapist's office!)