Family therapy services in Big Oaks, Chicago. Relationship and couples counseling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Family therapy focuses on improving communication and interaction in family system. This counseling commonly involves, but is not limited to, identifying parental dynamics that effect children, or vice versa. Sessions can include the family as a whole, or focus on individual therapy for the child/adolescent. The core goal of family counseling is to improve the psychological health of the whole family. Families can benefit from counseling when dealing with issues such as sibling conflict, addiction, illness, depression, financial stress and many more.

All families face serious challenges over a life time. Are you facing stressors that are affecting the entire family? Are you having trouble coming together to resolve issues that you and your family are facing? Your family can begin to learn how to mediate stress and begin to understand how a stressful situation can affect each family member. Together, we can learn ways that your family can use to get through a crisis. How a family manages a difficult experience, handles stress, reorganizes, and moves forward with life can influence current and long-term adjustment for family members and is important for the survival and well-being of the family unit.

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!

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.

Our family is here to help your family. Effective family therapy techniques involve the entire family in the diagnosis of problems as well as the short-term and long-term treatment options. Our goal is to help return the family to a healthy unit. Each individual family member is an extension of the family unit and cannot be treated for family issues with the exclusion of other members.

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.

Some of the benefits in seeking family therapy are: More meaningful relationships Better communication Ability to work through past or current hurts Be a better support system for each other Ability to set boundaries with self and others Gain a better understanding of each individual person Better ability to hold each other accountable Ability to keep families connected