Family Counseling in New York, NY & California

A healthy and cohesive family unit depends on the holistic well-being of each of its members. Conflict is viewed differently by each individual in a family and should be addressed in such a manner. Learn more below about empathy’s role in healing a family, no matter what struggle they are facing, and help yourself decide if family counseling in New York, NY and California is something worth exploring.

  • Shanti: inner peace

  • Bhāvanā: mental insight

  • Karuṇā: guided healing

What is Family Counseling?

Family therapy is a delicate balance of understanding the function of the entire family unit, while also fully empathizing with everyone’s individual perspectives and emotional involvement. Our therapists aim to ensure each family member feels heard, understood, and valued as both themselves, and as existing within the family itself. Each member is provided with a safe place from which to address the issues that they believe are at the root of why you’re seeking in-person or online therapy, which eventually allows our counselors to fully understand your family’s patterns.

Based on what our therapists view and experience during your session, we are then able to decide what steps to take to address your issues. Oftentimes this involves in session and at home tasks, as implementing strategies and tools in the common ground setting of your home is vital for your healing journey. After these therapeutic strategies are ingrained in your every day, then long-term, positive changes can be discussed and focused on. The end goal is to encourage each member of your family to feel confident enough in addressing these issues, whatever they may be, on their own and in their own way. This will eventually add to the cohesiveness of the entire family unit. We fixate on what makes you strong together and utilize that to build a better foundation for behavioral patterns, communication styles, attachment, bonding, and tackling life’s challenges.

It’s vital to mention here that what defines a family is completely up to you. Blood relations do not necessarily determine a family unit, and our therapists acknowledge this and address your family, however it is comprised, like its namesake.

Divorce Mediation

“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family” (Mother Theresa)

What Does Family Counseling Address?

Family counseling addresses a variety of issues that are inclusive of, but not limited to:

  • Family conflict
  • Divorce
  • Grief
  • Behavioral struggles
  • Substance use
  • Cultural barriers
  • Life transitions (e.g. new family members, loss of family members, blending families, health issues)
  • Mental health issues

The current quarantine has placed new and immense stress on family units, sometimes completely changing pre-established group dynamics. The lack of normal, healthy outlets and distractions (e.g. work, socializing, basic freedom of movement) has put a spotlight on issues within the home. This extra time together, alongside the extra time to focus on downfalls in communication and negative behavioral patterns, may bring new light to the functional abilities of your family. This is a normal reaction to such an omnipresent stressor, but it is a conducive context from which to recognize possible flaws that could use some guidance.

In our family systems approach, solution-based practices aim to guide you through effective problem-solving techniques. For example, it may be possible that one family member has a substance abuse problem. Or maybe all members have issues communicating effectively. Your therapy could even focus more on structural issues, such as power dynamics, or unhealthy boundaries between established parent and child roles. When specific family members are struggling with a mental health issue, and the goal of family therapy is to find a healthy awareness for coping with these struggles, we focus on psychoeducation first. We then delve into an analysis of behavioral patterns, emotions, and communication styles that could be contributing to an unhealthy understanding. By not placing blame, we can promote empathy for each family member and take small steps towards holistic well-being for you all.

Healing is a complicated journey, not an impossible one. Opening your heart and mind to your own well-being will enlighten your path and reveal your destination.

Our therapists follow a Family Systems Therapy approach to assisting you. We view the family dynamic as both relational and individual in nature. We aim to guide you all towards problem-solving behavior that benefits every member, born from your own narrative as a group. Even though each family member has an individual role to play, each person’s actions do relate directly to the group’s functionality, and vice versa. There is no one set path for family counseling and our therapists always approach your family with an open mind and open heart. We have families ourselves, allowing us to retain an empathetic and well-informed perspective as we learn about yours.

Our Therapeutic Approaches

Holistic & Transpersonal

Our family counseling utilizes an emotionally driven approach, similar to Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) used in couples counseling. EFT looks at the whole person, their attachment styles in relationships, and uses that transpersonal information to address the unhealthy patterns of behavior that are leading to the familial conflict.

The term holistic also applies to you as part of a unit and a family system. Your actions and behaviors directly affect those of your family, and vice versa. By recognizing everyone’s established roles in this integrative behavioral therapy, it becomes easier to determine what may cause roadblocks on your journey towards coping and healing.

‘You’-centric & Relational

Our insight-oriented approach allows your interactions with each other as a family to guide your treatment path. Your therapist will use the information they’re given from your communicative style, past issues, and current raising of issues, to determine the most productive course of action for you as individuals, and for you all as a family.
Every approach is different, but sometimes a more structured and tangible therapy is beneficial. After learning about your family, our therapists can provide systematic tools and strategies to implement during counseling, and at home, that assist in reframing the conflict at hand.

Mindfulness

Our counseling remains in the present moment and acknowledges the current familial conflict as separate from the family itself, allowing an external narrative to arise. This is extremely helpful for coping, as it encourages empathy and a recognition of each individual’s strengths. By separating the issue, it becomes easier to recognize each other’s perspectives that were previously drowned by the conflict or stressor. This is not to say that the influence the past has on current conflict is not vital, as intergenerational, learned patterns of behavior often arise in current familial conflict. We empathize with your family context and integrate these wider, situational interactions into the full picture of our therapy approach, as well.

Your Counseling Experience

Each therapeutic experience is different, and each session can unlock helpful and new paths to explore during the healing process. The below are just to give you a general idea of what to expect when you contact us, hopefully instilling a bit of confidence and ease any worry associated with seeking therapy.

  • 60-minute sessions generally, once a week.
  • Short-term work can last between 3-6 months or whenever you feel you’ve reached the version of your family you were all seeking
  • Long-term work also lasts as long as you all need

How We Choose Your Therapist

  • What you all need to reach mental well-being
  • Your personalities and energies
  • Your communication styles
  • Our therapist’s specialties, training, interests, and own lived experiences
  • Our therapist’s approach and communication style

In the Meantime

Extensive research has found that these simplistic and mindful lifestyle changes have a drastic effect on daily life. Give them a shot if
you need some immediate peace.

  • Meditation
  • Yoga
  • Reiki
  • Experiencing nature
  • Conscious, deep breathing
  • Maintain an active lifestyle
  • Healthy diet

FAQs About Family Counseling

There is absolutely a path towards addressing this source of conflict without making the individual feel targeted. Our family therapy approach sees each person as influenced by, and influencing, the entire family. A major part of our approach is to empathize with each family member, ensuring no one feels left out, unheard, or invalidated.

The wide scope of issues that our family counseling addresses allows us to tackle both your parenting discrepancies and their effects on your children in a family environment. However, if you wish to proceed with individual couples counseling as well and apply these new strategies to your family dynamic in family therapy, that is also possible. We are flexible and open to what you feel is the best healing journey for you and your family.

Oftentimes mental health struggles can be genetic and appear to be intergenerational. Family therapy sounds like it would be beneficial for you and your partner’s coping mechanisms for anxiety, consequently affecting how your children view your mental health and how they could view their own if anxiety does arise.

Family therapy sounds like a good fit for your new family structure. Blending families is always stressful and trying to manage everyone’s own, individual styles can become overwhelming and lead to conflict. We can help guide you towards a balanced approach to parenting and also assist your children in understanding this new stage in their life.

Family counseling provides you with tools and strategies for addressing current and future issues. It’s always a good idea to use some forethought, as you have, and prepare for a stressful life change before it happens. We can help you do this and allow this transition to be a smoother, healthier one for all of you.