Family Counselling Services in Southwold, ON.

Do you find that your relationships with your adult children are strained, and you struggle to form relationships with your grandchildren? Do you wish you could rely on your parents as an adult but find they have difficulty respecting your boundaries? Family therapy can help you understand one another better and help you learn to communicate so that everyone feels respected and understood.

As a family therapist, I witness the transformative power of family therapy every day. It offers a unique opportunity for families to come together in a safe and supportive environment, fostering understanding, communication, and healing. Through therapy, families can address underlying conflicts, improve relationship dynamics, and develop healthier ways of relating to one another. By exploring family patterns, beliefs, and behaviors, we uncover root causes of distress and work collaboratively to implement positive changes. Family therapy empowers individuals to express themselves authentically while promoting empathy and connection among family members.

Family therapy is a wonderful way to tackle family issues. It usually means learning to communicate differently and more effectively. Each family has its spoken and unspoken family rules. Helping these unspoken rules to become more visible or to revise current ones, can clarify misconceptions and assumptions. Since every family has unique problems, they also have unique solutions as well! Therapy can help a family to "see themselves in a whole new light" and realize they have everything they need to make their lives even better.

Families will have a safe and supportive space to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and strengthen their relationships. Therapy can help family members develop a deeper understanding of each other's perspectives, improve trust and empathy, and learn effective problem-solving skills. We can offer tools to address family dynamics, improve parenting strategies, and navigate life transitions. Issues such as divorce, substance abuse, or mental health challenges that affect the entire family can be addressed within this space.

If you drive with a flat tire the whole system is affected. Your car will not go smoothly nor straight. You use lots of effort trying to get to where you want to go; and the passengers are stressed! The same happens in families. If there is a problem with one or more family members, we tend to point at him/ her/ them. We want to "fix" them. However, I believe there are more than one way to look at the same situation: it is usually a systemic problem. Join the whole family in therapy. In a safe and friendly environment, you can each be heard and seen as you really are, and together arrive at a solution. This can be a very rewarding, educational, FUN and loving experience for all.

When one family member is depressed, stressed, angry, or otherwise not at their best, it deeply affects the rest of the family. Sometimes individual therapy is the correct path, but often, addressing relationship dynamics within the family system is the quickest, most direct way of dealing with the issue. I work with all ages and all combinations of family members.

Family therapy works because each of us is really also like a small group - with parent, child, sibling aspects (part selves) within us. It’s as if you personally contain an internal family. So when your own actual family is working well, those 'sides' of the family members do learn with each other. But they can also clash... Family (or couple) therapy is about harmonizing these relationships, both in each person as well as within the family group. I have over 35 years of experience in family therapy and see positive change occur even in tough situations. Family members move past simple role routines of who Mom, Dad, son and daughter are Supposed to Be, more aware of how to live in harmony.

Working on the parent-child relationship and/or sibling relationship can set the foundation for a happier and healthier family. Our therapists have extensive experience in supporting children, youth, adults and their caregivers to learn skills and process emotions that are necessary to feel more connected as a family unit using a variety of different tools and techniques.

At Talking Works, we help families gain an understanding of the interactional patterns that keep them stuck in negativity and disconnect and increase awareness of each person’s diverse perspective of the problem. Family therapy helps to improve communication and conflict resolution between family members leading to deeper connections and improved relationships within the family unit.

Much of family therapy is about uncovering old pain and hurts, often unconsciously inflicted on people. The ability to communicate openly and honestly is a very rare skill in our society and it is even more uncommon amongst families. Because we have either raised or grown up with the people in the family we often assume we understand them and why they say or do the things that they do. The truth is that is rarely the case. I work with families to create a safe space for truth to come out, but in a way where it is nurtured and communicated through me to help with greater understanding and empathy.

I would use the Systems Theory and Narrative approach to help families communicate what they view as the concerns within their family. Also using Middle Path, from DBT, as an approach to bridge the dialectical views between the individuals in the family which is causing conflict. Validating the different perspectives as individuals and looking for the kernal of truth, allows them to see the bigger picture through the lens of other members within the family.

Family dynamics can be challenging to navigate even during the best of times, and family therapy can help each member of the family unit find new ways to relate, connect, and communicate with each other. Giving each family member the chance to feel heard and valued while also navigating external stressors like work and school can be a struggle, so I work collaboratively with clients to identify and explore patterns of interaction that they want to strengthen or change, while highlighting each member’s contributions, and celebrating the family’s successes. Book a free consultation to learn more about my approach and explore if we are a good fit.

I am a Family therapist with experience in a children's mental health setting. I do parental coaching, helping parents find effective strategies, and I help blended families find a way to integrate those big changes smoothly. I will help you understand each other, we will identify the behavioural patterns that no longer work for you and develop new strategies for effective communication.