Family Counseling Services in Moraga, CA.

I found that the skills that my Couples learn from me: how to speak and listen in a way that allows real intimacy to digest on the gut level is extremely useful in working with families. Many times family members love each other but that love does not digest. Often there is a child or teenager that is acting out and when the parents learn how to connect with their child on a deeper level, the need for the acting out behaviors goes away. Parents sometimes need help being on the same team to BOTH provide the necessary structure (rules) AND do it in a way so the child (or teen) digests the love. Your children appreciate the rules from a loving team (even if they pretend they hate them)!

Family counseling is often a great way to help support family members working through a wide range of difficulties. Each member of a family is growing and developing at their own pace and in their own way. Often times conflict will arise between members due to insufficient understanding and a lack of proper communication. Family therapy can help clearly identify the conflict and how it is affecting ALL members of the family. It puts the power and responsibility for change on each member. Family therapy provides a compassionate, supportive place for members to hear, feel heard and build stronger, healthier connections.

The most successful approach in the world today to creating loving and close families, endorsed by the American Psychological Association for couples, is Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), and I am here to offer my services as an Emotionally Focused Therapist. With an astounding success rate, EFFT can enrich, stabilize, connect, and support families as they move from disconnect to healthy loving connections. Forget about learning to argue better, blaming, or analyzing your early childhood and instead, get to the core of your needs to feel emotionally connected to those you love by learning how to create a secure and lasting family bond. EFFT works and you deserve to learn more!

Issues arise in a family for a multitude of reasons, both big and small. In individual or marriage/couples counseling, the individual or parental unit learns skills to apply in their everyday life, including at home. In family therapy, I will work with your family and your values to help you resolve issues in a collaborative, effective and structured manner. I will work with you and your family in developing communication skills that allow each member of the family to express his/her needs in an open and honest way. Because we work within your family's value-system, the family unit learns and develops these skills together, knowing their thoughts and needs were acknowledged and respected

Having your family all in one room talking openly about personal issues with a therapist may sound like the worst possible way to spend an hour. Families are complicated and sometimes communication can almost completely break down. I can help each member of your family to feel heard and understood. By listening deeply to your past and present personal family history we can collaborate to make meaningful links and identify where communication might be breaking down. By creating effective communication we can generate movement around family issues and dynamics that may have felt stuck or impossible to understand. My style is warm, nonjudgmental, and active.

Family therapy looks at the entire family system—parents, children, extended family members—to identify strengths and problematic behaviours. I collaborate with families on strategies for utilizing their own capabilities for resolving problems, and on developing effective communication and problem-solving skills for preventing conflicts. I specialize in working with families of teenagers, which is an age that can be challenging for both the teenagers and their parents.

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.

Family counseling is designed to strengthen the bonds within the relationship. Many times families will be struggling with day-to-day living (small problems will start to add up to larger problems). We tend to fall into ruts of the way we do things and sometimes that creates resentments and conflict that are not communicated in a way that helps others within the family to understand your concerns. By bringing everyone together. we can work on communication, division of labor, finances, and other issues that may be making home life not the sanctuary that we all want our homes to be.

Family is the most important thing. However, sometimes stress and life transitions cause conflict and distress. Family members sometimes lose connection with each other. Our approach to resolving conflict and disconnection is heart-felt and based upon the idea that we all need to be connected to out loved ones. We believe all behavior makes sense and that if you get at the underlying needs and feelings propelling a behavior, you can resolve the issue. We help families repair ruptures by using empathic client centered interventions, which open up communication so that it is much fuller and deeper opening up a new dimension for the family. The benefit is a happy and cohesive family unit.

I spent two years running the adolescent unit of a psychiatric hospital, where I had to do a great many family therapy sessions, which has made me very experienced in family dynamics. I am a big believer in the family systems approach, where the family is seen as a relational unit and focus is put on how the energetics are playing out in the family dynamic.

I particularly enjoy working with pairs within a family system—a mother and daughter for instance or siblings. Family members who are longing to be closer to each other and having trouble doing it, or wanting to better communicate. This isn't about trying to fix another person or convince them of our views. In therapy, getting to deeper levels of empathy and understanding with the people closest to us can solve a lot of issues on its own, building respect and tolerance for differences, and a gratifying sense of connection. It takes courage, effort, and the willingness to lay down our swords and shields, but it is worth it.

Conflicts in a family can become so routine that it may be difficult for you to determine which issues are important and which have become automatic battles. I can provide your family a safe place to work through this with an objective and neutral perspective that allows everyone to hear and everyone to be heard. Frequent arguing, nagging, complaining - all intensify the stress of daily life. Your family can learn to live harmoniously - not perfectly without ever having conflict - but without the need for "winners" and "losers" in constant tug of wars. It is exhausting and unhealthy to live with tension in your home. Call me today and let's begin easing that tension and regaining calm.

Family therapy is a process that targets relationships between and among members of an immediate or extended family. I recommend that families pursue therapy when a family member experiences problems which upsets family dynamics. This includes, but is not limited to, illness of a family member, a separation or divorce, a child experiencing problems that impact the family and the challenges inherent in blending families. My purpose is to help each family member learn to interact more effectively and handle conflicts within the family both positively and constructively. I work with both the adults and children in the family as they work together to function successfully as a family unit.