Family Counselling Services in Saskatoon, SK.

Rev. Jodi Bryant uses a biblical grace-based Christ-Intervention Transformation and Spirit-led Soul Discipleship Model with integrated clinical approaches and psycho-education to assist people going through life's hardships. Families, including step, blended, kinship, and jigsaw, have common dynamics needing acknowledgement to evolve into healthy families. You are not alone. Others who have gone before you have wise insights. Let Jodi will help you explore these issues and share tools for you to implement. She's helped hundreds of people acknowledge their spiritual, emotional, and mental roots that were present and affecting their journey towards healing.

Counseling can provide a safe environment for family members to seek to repair their relationships. Family therapy offers a process for everyone to feel heard and understood. When a family member is struggling with an addiction, the whole family is negatively impacted. If you are struggling with addictions or a family member of someone with an addiction, then I may be able to assist you with using a variety of techniques, including Relapse Prevention, to improve your situation.

Families are evolving systems of relationships involving individuals and the interactions among family members. Each person brings their own set of values, personality, strengths, and challenges and patterns of behavior that can lead to both positive and negative family functioning. Whether a problem occurs on an individual level or to the whole family, it affects everyone in diverse ways. I will work with you to develop those areas that bind you together as a family, such as creating shared goals. As well, I will ensure that everyone’s voice is heard and understood as we work together on the strengths, problem-solving skills, and interaction patterns that lead to positive change.

I have been in the education and social wellness field for almost 20 years, specializing in counselling individuals, couples, and families to live purposeful, joy filled lives by focusing on Mental and Emotional work first. As Alfred Adler suggested, “first we think, then we feel, and then we act”. I help individuals navigate through issues related to stress, anxiety, depression, and life transitions. I have a special interest in working with couples and relationship issues. My approach relies on extensive experience in Solution Focused Brief Therapy, TEAM-CBT, and MI. As well, I offer Parent Education Training assistance and programs.

When working with families we ultimately work to create a space in which family members can interact in a way that each person feels safe. We work on the parameters of language, physical and other spaces and then build from there, so that the relationship within at least some context (e.g. within a therapeutic setting, and/or through text, etc.), can function in a way that is sustaining and manageable to each member. From there we might explore the 'dream within the position' of each member, which is useful in revealing the areas in which healing could potentially occur. Art therapy may be used as a way of figuratively creating a safe mutual space, and likewise to build the relationship.

Family relationships can be tough. I use systemic theories to work with families on structural and systemic issues while considering causes and sources of conflict in family relationships such as societal expectations, cultural norms, boundaries and issues, cross cultural relationships, non-traditional family relationships, adoptive family issues, sibling rivalry, parent-child relationships, inter-generational issues etc.

Family members often feel misunderstood, disrespected, or disconnected from each other. Given that there are differences in personality, preference, needs, wants, and desires. It is not surprising that conflict can and often do erupt in families. I work to support families to hear and see each other more clearly so that relationships can be strengthened and disputes resolved. You can learn to improve communication, to handle conflict in respectful ways, and help your family become stronger and more united.

When families come for counselling, Bev endeavors to create a setting that is mutually respectful for parents and children. Bev will attempt to discern whether to briefly see parents alone and children/teens alone. This can give powerful insights as to what is happening in the family. A family meeting will be conducted and Bev will help each to hear the other. Family will come up with consensus decisions that are satisfying to them. Bev will help teenager to have a voice and help parents to hold their boundaries in respectful ways. Bev will equip parents and families with Adlerian parenting methods so they can continue creating these types of interactions themselves.

Despite the best intentions of ourselves and our family members, we are often tangled in patterns of invalidation, rejection, frustration and blame. It can feel so messy that we operate in a constant state of fear and a crippling sense of unworthiness. In 2008 I started my counselling career as a family therapist. A combination of individual and joint sessions will take place to allow the space for all voices to be respectfully heard, while helping to identify bigger ‘systems’ patterns that keep you stuck in pain and finger-pointing. I will help to smooth out communication, make room for wants and needs and to heal the old wounds holding you back from having a healthier relationship.

Families operate in established systems that maintain a positive 'state of being' for some time. However, an established system can also prove ineffective at times. Recognizing 'open' and 'closed' communication systems, established power structures / hierarchies, and long-established modes of communication is often key to improving elements of family functioning.

Families are complex systems that require care and maintenance. Family systems therapy provides fresh perspectives to help ease tension and renew hope. I use a solution-focused approach to help families look beyond the problem so they can build the relationships they desire. Together, families learn to resolve conflict, improve attachment, and increase connection.

Family dynamics can be tricky. By working together we can figure out better ways of communicating, being hear, and seen, and moving towards a more balanced dynamic. If you are having a difficult time after your divorce and are trying to co-parent with your ex-partner, I can also support you with the right tools and co-parenting techniques that can transform your relationships.

Narrative therapy views problems as separate from the family, and uses the technique of externalization to distinguish this separation. Externalization is achieved by a discursive shift where problems become referred to as nouns, and thus, as separate objectified entities. The family chooses a name for the problem through collaborative conversations with the therapist.