Family Counseling Services in Smyrna, TN.

Sometimes our families find themselves in a place of crisis due to divorce or the loss of a family member. Other times we've stopped communicating with one another, forgotten how to hear one another, and we don't know how to bridge the distance and the hurt. In counseling, I'm able to provide each member of your family with a safe place to open up to one another. Take heart that your family can grow closer again - or for the first time!

There is not one template to tell any family exactly how to fix their problems. Families get healthier as individuals in the family become healthier, and visa versa. Sometimes personality conflicts exist that can be improved by simply understanding the enormous differences in how varying personality types interpret life and events.. Other times there are much deeper issues ranging from character disorders, neurosis, personality disorders, past abuse, etc. While the dynamics can sometimes feel daunting, a mood of compassion and hope from a skilled therapist can set the tone for improvement in what might have seemed a hopeless situation.

A great deal of attention is given to understanding how a family has structured, organized itself around a presenting issue or problem and how the family has been functioning. Family systems therapy provides the family with a focus on patterns of communication and behaviors that help them understand how such communication and behavior has perpetuated their issue(s) and reduces the likelihood of placing responsibility or blame on one person or identifying one person as the "patient". With the therapist as a facilitator the family can learn new ways to relate and create innovative approaches to problem solving.

Brian approaches hurting relationships with great hope, based on a knowledge of the ways to intervene with couples and families that have been found to be most effective. Beyond mere behavioral training and communication techniques, he uses the principles of Emotionally Focused Therapy to go deeper into the core of clients' hurts, fears, desires, and hopes.

My family therapy approach involves seeing the whole family initially to understand each person's unique perspective, provide safety for each person to express themselves and to give each person the opportunity to determine their comfort level with me as therapist. I will then work with parts of the family (eg, siblings, parents, dyads such as Mother/Child, Father/Child, Sib/Sib) to support recognition of the unique cycle each group/dyad experiences as problematic in having the closeness and safety they desire within the family. I use Emotion Focused Family Therapy which is based on attachment research and which acknowledges our need to be known and loved by family members.

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.