Family Counseling Services in Indian Wells, CA.

Sometimes real change takes more than an individual - it requires a family. When I think about any problem a person could face as an individual, whether it be a health concern, mental illness, or an addiction, the family can be the single greatest source of support or the single greatest problem. I provide targeted therapy to bolster the support that is the family.

Family counseling is a most valuable opportunity for helping families in crisis as well as families who may be going through a life transition. Families can become socially, emotionally and psychologically dangerous, confusing, and even internally devastating. Families that are experiencing dysfunctional changes including addictions, emotional and mental illness, abandonment, fierce arguments, new family members, departing family members, new family rules, power relationships and family power changes that happen in an unprepared manner can create emotional traumas of significant proportions. Family counseling serves to restructure a families operation and aims to transform family dysfunction to family function.

Family therapy is often the treatment of choice for families who are confronted with specific crisis situations, (such as death, divorce, illness, or child/adolescent issues). When the family is the client, I assess the way members interact and work to improve communication and problem-solving skills, as well as resolve the current life stressors. Each family member plays a role in the way the family interacts and is seen as a vital participant in both the healthy and dysfunctional styles of interaction. Therefore, in family counseling the goal is to assist each member to work together more effectively to create a more functional family unit.

Imagine a family as a tree with branches, roots, trunk representing parts of the immediate and extended family. When working with families, all elements are considered. Usually there is a request for family therapy due to one of it's members in crisis, often a child. However, when an analysis of need is done it becomes apparent that more than one member of the family needs help in adjusting, growing and learning new behaviours. Clients contact me for a variety of reasons: to improve communications, solve family problems, support in special situations such as death, divorce, marriage, illness, child or adolescent issues.